


No Such Thing As Fate

by Mysecretfanmoments



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 23:16:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 52,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1165756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mysecretfanmoments/pseuds/Mysecretfanmoments
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You forgot,” he said, with a tone of sudden clarity. “Ah. So that’s why you called me captain.”</p><p>Reincarnation AU in which Eren and Levi never established a relationship in that other life. (background pairings: Erwin x Marie, Armin with past feelings for Annie)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It was him

He was just a boy with an overactive imagination until the girl with the red scarf showed up on the Jaeger’s doorstep one winter’s evening: breathless, her cheeks flushed with cold, dark hair framing her pale face. Dr. Jaeger stood staring at the stoic seven year-old, noting how the pink Dora the Explorer suitcase she carried was the only childish thing about her.

Eren and Carla were in the kitchen eating their dinner, oblivious to the change about to happen in their lives.

“Does Eren live here?” the girl asked.

“Who is it?” Carla called. “Carolers at long last?”

“Someone for Eren,” Grisha called back, remembering the red scarf he’d seen in Eren’s drawings. It was one of the repeating motifs, along with a few others: a boy with golden, bowl-cut hair, a scowling man, goggles over a smiling face, crisscrossing belts, green cloaks, silver blades—and, of course, the monsters.

At least the monsters hadn’t showed up on the doorstep of their suburban home.

Eren appeared in the hallway, a spaghetti stain on the corner of his mouth. He peered around his father, curious, but when he saw who stood in the doorway all childlike curiosity fell away.

“Eren,” the girl said. She pushed past Grisha. Eren’s father reached to pull her back, but Eren was opening his arms up to the strange girl—his Eren, who didn’t make many friends, who was always lost in dreams. His Eren, who never let anyone but his parents touch him. He clung to the girl, and she clung to him.

The Dora the Exporer suitcase stood on the empty doorstep, abandoned.

Dr. Jaeger brought it into the house and closed the door behind him.

 

* * *

 

Mikasa’s arrival heralded a new age for Eren—or rather, it allowed his life to begin in earnest. He no longer worried about his strange dreams of flying through the air in a sea of monsters, or looking up at walls that rose up taller than any tree. He no longer worried that he was crazy.

Mikasa had never worried in the first place.

“Don’t you ever wonder about the others?” Eren asked one night during one of their sleepovers. He asked it many nights, in fact, once his friend lived close enough to visit often. Mikasa’s parents had moved to Eren’s town at their daughter’s insistence, and neither set of parents seemed to mind that the two of them spent a lot of time alone together even once they hit puberty. For whatever reason, the two of them acted like siblings.

“I told you,” Mikasa said. “I can’t find Armin. I’ve tried. Unless we can get the police involved somehow, send them a drawing…”

“ _If_ he looks the same.”

“We do,” she said plainly.

Eren fiddled with the covers on his bed. They were thirteen now, and they still hadn’t found anyone but each other. Miracle as _that_ was—courtesy of Mikasa’s refusal to doubt herself—he couldn’t help but hope for another miracle. It wasn’t like he needed to befriend all their old companions, all the half-remembered faces, but he wanted to know they were all right. There were images in his mind, gruesome ones, of people he knew smeared with blood or cut in two or broken after a long, long fall. If he could see them again, living proper lives away from towering walls, perhaps the nightmares would stop.

“Not just Armin,” he said. “All of them. What if they think they’re crazy?”

She reached out, her hand covering his. “They’re free of the walls. Isn’t it enough, knowing people get second chances?”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Eren snapped. “The only ones you care about are me and Armin.”

“I—” she started, before withdrawing her hand. She cradled it against her, as if Eren’s skin had burned her. “I care about the others, too. But I don’t want to worry. I don’t want to waste this life looking for that one. We don’t even remember what happened.”

“You still believe it, though, don’t you? That it _did_ happen? That it wasn’t dreams?”

Mikasa was silent.

“I miss Armin,” Eren said.

“Me, too.”

They settled down for the night, the light from the stars outside providing the only light in the room. Eren wanted to sleep, but there was a fire inside of him—there always was. A useless, anachronistic fire. He had parents who loved him, a sister who understood him, and there were no monsters in this world—not visible ones that needed slaying, at least. So why was he still so angry? Why had his obsession carried over to this life? He had no doubt his other self had died as he’d lived, giving everything he had to fight the monsters that plagued his world. Why hadn’t that fire burnt itself out?

“We’ll enroll in every martial arts program we can,” Mikasa said, making Eren jump. He’d thought she was asleep. “I think the others might still feel the need to fight, if they have similar memories. And for Armin, we’ll watch every game show kids our age can participate in—he’s smart enough for it. He might be trying to find us too. And you’ve been keeping an eye on the forums?”

Eren had accounts on every forum he could find, from game sites with message boards to esoteric sites about astral projection and soulmates. Somewhere, he hoped to find some other crazy person posting about walls and a contraption that could allow its wearer to fly through the sky. His search had gotten easier when his parents updated to Broadband, but the result was the same.

“I am, but there’s nothing. Maybe the others aren’t looking.”

Mikasa must have heard the catch in his voice, because she replied with uncharacteristic optimism: “They are.”

Neither of them voiced the other option: that maybe the others weren’t looking, weren’t remembering—because that other world wasn’t worth looking for.

 

 

* * *

 

Sixteen year-old Eren gazed down at one of the lists in his past-life notebook, one of many lists dedicated to remembering what he could about the people he’d once known. He didn’t remember names, really, and sometimes he didn’t even have enough information to provide a nickname. The nameless ones he did remember well enough were headed by titles like “horseface” and “potato girl” and “tongue biter”.

There was one name, Armin Arlert, that he knew for sure. But that wasn’t the list he was looking at. Instead, he stared at a short list belonging to someone whose name he couldn’t even remember, the page in his notebook gone soft with handling.

 

_Captain(?)_

-       _strong_

-       _high rank_

-       _likes cleaning(?)_

It was the most meaningless list he’d made, but not because he couldn’t remember. It was meaningless because he couldn’t make sense of the memories, couldn’t commit them to paper. There was a tight feeling in his chest when he thought of the captain, a strange nervousness that almost seemed like excitement, but it was muted by confusion. He remembered a man with heavy-lidded eyes and an angular face gazing at him with what could be approval or affection, but he also remembered being beaten bloody by that same man. Without context to explain why he was being beaten, he couldn’t quite understand why his other memories of the man were so… rosy. There was admiration—hero worship, really—a will to please, and also something furtive that might hint at something more. Had they been lovers? Was that possible? But he would remember, surely. He didn’t remember any romance. Regret, maybe.

From what he could see, it looked like a one-sided crush born from admiration. He remembered a compact figure, green cloak flapping, standing on the remains of a monster. Looking back at them.

Did that fierce man want to be found?

Eren’s phone rang, making him jump. He expected it to be a girl from school calling about their group project—which Eren had been ignoring—but it was Mikasa.

“Hello?” he answered.

“Eren,” she said breathlessly. “Remember those personal ads I kept placing?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“He’s here. He’s found us.”

Eren grabbed his coat and started running.

 

* * *

 

“I don’t think anyone could ignore it,” Armin was saying, his voice steady against the hum of talk in the Food Court. He didn’t seem to mind the way Eren and Mikasa kept touching him as if to reassure themselves he was real. His blue eyes were bright as he continued. “But there’s a good chance that the people we remember have found the ones close to them, like we have, and are keeping it at that. Only Eren has the same last name—it’s not like a phonebook would be much help.”

“So you think there’s little groups like ours all over the world?” Eren asked. He wondered who the captain would try to find, in that case. The blond commander, probably, and maybe the crazy scientist with the flight goggles. Or rather—they would find him. Would he look for the team Eren remembered torn up and bloody? Somehow, that horrific memory was tied to the captain in his head. The captain’s team, maybe? His friends?

“Maybe. It’s not like there’s a guidebook for this stuff. And it doesn’t make sense no matter how you look at it—even if you believe in reincarnation. I mean, I’ve read all the history books… but it’s like the memories are from a different dimension. Not our real past.”

“Alternate history?” Mikasa guessed.

“Or alternate future. Just _alternate._ Really, really alternate.” He folded his arms over the table, resting his head on them sideways. “I wish I could find the others. This is going to bug me.”

Eren snorted a laugh, thinking Armin made it sound like a small, everyday problem. He was glad. He was so, so glad that Armin remembered them, and that he was here. Even though this world had been created for people like Armin, people who were smart, who weren’t ruthless or angry, Armin still wanted to be with him and Mikasa.

Not that Mikasa was generally the problem; she’d just been dragged along by Eren’s fire, even the second time around.

“We could send out a picture of ourselves,” Armin said. “Pretend it’s a six degrees of separation experiment. Or that we’re looking for lost relatives or something. Use social media.”

“I tried that on Myspace,” Eren said. “It didn’t really go anywhere.”

“Facebook is getting bigger now.” Armin smiled a little. “My mom is on it, and she’s always sharing stupid things. It has to start somewhere, right?”

Mikasa agreed, but Eren couldn’t help thinking that the person he most wanted to talk to would never reach out to him. Eren had to find him, ask him why there were such disparate memories of him rattling around in Eren’s head: violence and anger alongside longing stares and nights spent talking. Still, he’d be happy to find others.

“Eren?” Armin said, straightening up. “Are you okay?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah. Just kind of frustrated. I wish this was easier.”

“It’s a big world,” Armin said, awe apparent in his voice. “A really, really big world. When I think about… well. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter, finding the others. It’s just for fun, right? Because it would be nice to see them again.”

“Who do you most want to find?” Eren asked.

“Besides you two? I always wanted to find you two.”

“Besides us,” Mikasa said, and Eren looked up at her in surprise. She’d never been one to pry, but maybe she considered this a safety issue.

Armin sighed heavily. “No judgment, okay? Annie. I want to find her.”

A frown appeared between Mikasa’s brows, just as Eren asked, “The… is she the blond one? Who… turned into one of them?”

His old friend nodded. “I wonder what she remembers. _If_ she remembers. I want her actions to make sense—plus she was encased in that crystal, so she might have lived to see what happened after we were gone. And I guess I just wonder what it would be like for her, living in this world. If she feels guilty. I’m curious.”

“Not in love, then?” Eren asked, a little selfishly. It would help if Armin had a past-life crush to deal with, too. The fact that this lost love might be a girl he’d despised and sworn vengeance on hardly seemed to matter; if Armin was in love with her, Eren would swallow his feelings—so long as she didn’t turn into a monster this time around.

“Don’t think so. I don’t know. What did I feel back then? I only know I needed you two, that we all needed each other. I’m glad that carried over.”

Mikasa grabbed both their hands, her face uncharacteristically expressive. There was a sheen of tears over her eyes. “Me too. Eren, I know—I know you think I don’t care about the others. I do. But I’m so glad. Even if I never met another one of us, I’d be so glad.”

She took a breath.

“But since we have our whole lives ahead of us, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with looking people up along the way. We have our mastermind back. We can find them.” She looked up at Eren. “That’s what you want, right? And I want it for you. For all of us.”

Armin grinned. “Mastermind. I could have used that ego boost in middle school. You know I _still_ got teased? Even this time around. I must have one of those faces.”

“You should have looked for us earlier,” Mikasa said, sounding vaguely murderous. Eren bit back a smile.

“It wasn’t a big deal, not like back then. And I _was_ looking. Not my fault we were born in different states.”

“And now?” Mikasa said. “You can’t stay, right?”

“I can stay for a while, and I’ll come stay for longer this summer. But I thought, once we go to college…”

“We’ll go together,” Eren said, something inside of him slotting into place. “Where? I think my grades are okay, but I don’t want to hold you back.”

Armin flushed a little before leaning down to grapple with something in his backpack. After a moment he brought out a folder and pushed it across at them.

“It’s in New York City,” he said as they opened the folder to find admission papers. “I looked for the one with the most journal subscriptions; I figure good access to articles might help us find the scientist.”

“The one with the goggles, you mean?” Eren said.

“Yeah—the one who researched the titans. There’s no _way_ they aren’t a scientist in this life, and just as curious. As for the others, I figure it’s better to be in a busy place. More people. If they’re looking for their friends…”

“It’s a good place to start,” Eren said. Armin smiled at the recognition, and Eren leveled him with a serious stare. “Now, since you’ve decided our college for us, what are our majors?”

Armin spluttered, the way Eren had known he would, and the three of them burst out laughing. They didn’t care that they drew stares, didn’t care when the laughter started looking an awful lot like tears. At long last, their trio was complete, and it felt better than they could have hoped for.

 

* * *

 

 

The first few months in the big city were tense in the best way possible. There were so many people that Eren kept expecting to look up and find a familiar face. It could happen at any time.

Except, well. There were a _lot_ of people.

“I know we’ll find Crazy Scientist if we just keep reading papers,” Armin said, sitting in their shared dorm room one night. He spent most of his time trawling the university library’s website for the obscurest publications. “Anything on different dimensions, or the universe—or maybe group delusions, or something. They’d be interested in what’s happening to us.”

He was known to assign reading, and Eren was learning more from their search for Crazy Scientist than he was in his classes.

Mikasa sighed, flopping onto Eren’s bed. She lived just down the hall from the two of them, and spent few of her wakeful hours there. “What if they were born somewhere else and didn’t get to go to school?”

“They’d escape,” Armin said, without even hesitating. “They’d find a way. Besides, isn’t this the city of opportunity?”

“The city that never sleeps,” Eren corrected, a little distracted at the thought. _Long nights spent talking…_

“How are classes, by the way?” Armin asked. He was a year ahead of them credits-wise, and it meant the only class they had with him was health—which was widely considered a joke and not widely attended.

“Fine,” Mikasa and Eren said together. They had the same major—exercise science—and the same classes, though Eren was taking art as an elective and Mikasa had opted for an introductory psychology course. She was still taking a bunch of martial arts classes in addition to her schooling, and Eren was wandering the city at every chance he got. They spent enough time apart to feel like real people, but only just.

“Do you like the people in yours?” Eren asked, more out of a sense of responsibility than actual interest. He knew Armin and Mikasa were trying hard to live their lives normally. Harder than he was, anyway. He’d already drifted out of contact of most of his high school friends and acquaintances, and he wasn’t making many friends in college. It was hard to feign interest when thoughts of hell and half-remembered faces kept him from the world around him.

“I do,” Armin said. “They’re all really interesting. It’s hard to connect, sometimes, but if I just pretend the other world is a weird dream we all had, I don’t feel so far away from them. Then I wonder if we should be doing this at all, you know? Keeping it alive like this.”

It was an old thought, one they’d rubbed raw with discussion. Were they wasting their lives looking? Was it better not to know?

“I know,” Eren said. Maybe tomorrow, he’d stay in instead of spending the hours before classes walking the streets, peering into coffee shop windows on the off chance he might spot someone. His other self had never had much opportunity to sleep in; shouldn’t he be indulging in it now?

The evening crawled by, a mix of papers and homework and discussion, transitioning smoothly into sleep once Mikasa left for her own room.

Eren left the dormitory at eight the next morning. As usual.

 

* * *

 

 

Cold wind nipped at Eren’s fingers and rifled through his hair, amplified by the tall buildings on either side of the street. There was no snow, but it was cold enough for it, and Eren was forced to walk with his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his dark green coat. Every once in a while he adjusted the large white scarf he wore, or pulled at the fur-lined hood of his coat so the wind had less chance of sneaking in, but nothing seemed to help.

Coffee shops beckoned him from either side, promising warm bagels and hot beverages in all the varied flavors of winter. It was hard to keep walking past them, and he knew he’d give in soon.

 _You won’t find anyone_ , he thought to himself. The thought was his constant companion on these morning walks. Sometimes he managed to shake it off, imagining instead that he flew through the air between tall buildings like a belted-in Spiderman, but the cold had a wearing effect on his imagination. He couldn’t keep it up.

Someone bumped into his shoulder, making him stumble sideways. He turned to glare at the person, but stopped when he noticed this new angle allowed him to see past the tall person he’d been walking behind for the past few blocks, and what he saw stopped him dead.

Up ahead walked a man, shorter than average, with black hair worn in just the way the captain used to wear his. As if that wasn’t enough, the man dodged around passersby who got too close, managing to look like he’d never altered his course at all. Eren’s breath caught in his throat, all thoughts of coffee shops and cold fleeing his mind.

“C—captain!” he yelled, breaking into a run. He moved past the tall man who’d blocked his view. “Captain!”

There were weird looks from passersby, and the space around him seemed to empty out. Eren’s pace slowed. The man wasn’t turning. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t him.

The short man ahead of Eren turned.

It was him.                                                           


	2. Memories of loss

The captain raised a hand to his face as if it might hide his stunned expression. “K—kid,” he said, a flush visible above his scarf. Eren stared, oblivious to the people bumping into his back and the annoyed stares of passersby. There was recognition on the other man’s face, instant recognition, and it sent shockwaves through Eren’s body.

Had he always been this small? This easy to read? Eren’s heart turned over, though with what he didn’t know. He couldn’t quite bring himself to speak.

“You’re quiet this time around,” the captain said, his expression smoothing out once more. It was the nervous flutter of his hands that betrayed him, telling Eren he was not as calm and emotionless as he’d like him to believe.

“Can we talk somewhere?” Eren asked.

The captain nodded.

They set off at a brisk pace. Eren could hardly feel his legs with all the shock coursing through him, but he trusted them to do their job as he focused all his attention on the man beside him. The captain—damn it, what was his name?—wore a black pea coat and a navy scarf, dressed like all the other fashionable, businesslike city people Eren didn’t feel quite comfortable around. Would Eren have recognized him without the familiar haircut? He didn’t think so. He felt a wave of gratitude that the captain hadn’t felt the need to change things up. Armin had long since abandoned the bowl cut of Other-Armin, and no one would recognize him on the street without it.

His companion ducked into a coffee shop, not looking to see if Eren followed. He did.

“What would you like?” the captain asked, tugging off his leather gloves. Eren watched the process, trying to remember the question.

_What would you like. Right._

“Anything warm,” he said. He zipped his coat down a bit and started rummaging around in the inner pocket for his wallet, but a hand stopped him.

“Go sit down.”

The soft voice brokered no argument, and Eren left the captain standing in line, choosing a small table in the very corner of the establishment. His mind was a whirring mass of questions, but one shouted loudly above the others: what on earth was the captain’s real name?

It had started with an L, maybe. He’d thought that before, but going through lists of babynames hadn’t helped any. _Did_ it start with L? The only L-name that was coming into his head right now was Leeroy Jenkins.

He was pretty sure that wasn’t it.

His fruitless brainstorming session came to a halt when the captain joined him, holding two paper cups. He slid one of them towards Eren before sitting down opposite and loosening his coat and scarf. His expression was shuttered, and Eren wondered briefly why he had agreed to talk in the first place if he didn’t want to.

No. That wasn’t right. The captain just didn’t express himself the way others did. There would be no tearful smiles, no hugs, not like there had been with Mikasa and Armin.

“What’s your name?” Eren asked, deciding to throw caution to the wind. He could always pretend he meant what his _current_ name was, not the one he used to have.

“It’s the same,” the captain answered.

Damn it!

“Yours?”

“It’s the same, um. Eren. Eren Jaeger. Both are the same.”

The captain raised one thin brow. “I know what your name was. You thought I forgot?”

Eren studied his drink carefully, wishing it was cool enough to sip.

“ _You_ forgot,” the captain said, with a tone of sudden clarity. “Ah. So that’s why you called me captain.”

Was it possible to die of embarrassment? “That’s what people called you. What I called you.”

“I’m not offended,” the older man said, but his curiously blank expression could be hiding murderous rage for all Eren knew. “It’s Levi.”

“Levi,” Eren breathed, feeling as if something inside of him had just clicked into place. “Captain Levi.”

“Just Levi.”

Eren blushed. “Right.”

“You wanted to talk,” Levi said. He didn’t sound impatient, exactly—more like he was reminding Eren of something he might have forgotten.

Eren had forgotten many things, but not that he wanted to talk to this man.

“It’s hard to know where to start,” he said apologetically. “After so much. Isn’t it? Always?”

Levi leaned forward, a spark of interest in his eyes. “You’ve met others?”

“Yeah, two,” Eren said, deciding it might be fun to experiment a little. “Guess who.”

“Your sister,” Levi said immediately. “And… mushroom kid. Blondie. The smart one.”

Eren was tempted to ask him for their names, but he decided not to. “You got it right. Mikasa found me when we were seven—I didn’t trust my memories until then—and we found Armin when we were sixteen.”

“You’re all the same age?”

Eren frowned. “We’ve always been the same age. Why?”

Levi looked away. “I found others. Older than they should have been, at least in relation to me. People who used to be younger. And you seem older than you should be.”

A puzzled smile pulled at Eren’s lips. “Older than I should be? How? How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“What does that mean?”

Levi swallowed a gulp of his drink—tea, by the label sticking out of it—and stapled his hands, looking away resolutely. “I have a theory. There was an… entry point, for us. And how many years past that entry point we were born depended on when we left the other timeline.”

Something about Levi’s voice made anxiety roil in Eren’s stomach. An entry point? Leaving the timeline? A grim idea rose to the surface of his thoughts. “Left the timeline—you mean died?”

Levi nodded.

“But you’re ten years older than me now,” Eren said, smiling faintly. “That’d mean you’d—you’d—”

A twisting pain started in his stomach. He buckled forward, caught completely by surprise. He’d remembered long nights spent talking, and being beaten up, and regret. He hadn’t remembered—hadn’t remembered—

He heard his name, but it couldn’t cut through the fog of his thoughts, the haze of pain. Grief struck him dumb, blind, deaf. In his other life, he had known what it was like to see his hero die, and he had erased the memory. He wished he could have gone his whole life without regaining it.

“Eren.” This time there were hands accompanying the voice, forcing him to unbend, to sit up straight. He breathed past the knives in his lungs and opened his eyes, teeth gritted. The pale face staring back at him suddenly seemed a whole lot more precious.

“Captain,” Eren said. Wheezed, really.

A small smile met his words. “Levi.”

“I didn’t…”

Levi nodded, moving back to his chair. “It’s okay. I don’t remember much, either. Or I didn’t for a long time.”

“There’s something I’d like to ask about that, if you don’t mind.”

“Shoot.”

Eren knotted his fingers together, a different anxiety filling him. At least this newest revelation made it seem trivial in comparison. “There’s a memory I have,” he started. “In a courtroom, or something.”

Levi flinched. “I think I know what memory you mean.”

If he knew, Eren wasn’t going to voice it. He waited for Levi to speak, noting the tightness around his mouth.

“I believed it was necessary at the time,” Levi said. “I’m not sure… no, I am. It was for show, though I can’t remember why. It had something to do with your shifting. I remember you being in a cell, too. My actions were related, but that’s all I remember.”

 That was something, though Eren had hoped for a better explanation.

“Mikasa and Armin both remember me shifting,” Eren said. “I don’t, though. I don’t remember any of that. I only remember being able to heal.”

Levi nodded, and a tense silence formed between them. They both turned to their drinks, and Eren took his first sip. It was sweet—mocha of some kind. Caramel, maybe. He closed his eyes as he took a longer drink, savoring the coffee smell and the sweetness on his tongue. Yep. Definitely caramel.

When he looked up, Levi was watching him, and a warmth wholly unrelated to the coffee went through Eren’s body. He thought of the other questions he wanted to ask—what their exact relationship had been, whether he knew Eren had some sort of crush on him—but even though all those things had happened in another life, he still felt too embarrassed to ask about them.

“Who have you found?” Eren blurted, as if it might cover his embarrassment.

“My team,” Levi said, voice quiet. “The ones who died trying to stop the female titan. They’re the ones who are older. They’re living good lives out west—involved with some kind of gaming company that’s trying to reinvent 3D maneuver gear. They’ve been at it for years. And then Erwin and Hange found me, and they live close by. They aren’t technically called Hange anymore, but they still go by it. Erwin’s still Erwin—he was born in the Netherlands.”

“The commander and Crazy Scientist?”

Levi snorted. “Yes. Both of them are younger than I am, this time, so I suppose they outlived me there. Bastards.”

Eren wanted to laugh at the joke, but the earlier pain gnawed at his stomach, making it impossible to do anything but clench his teeth and let his grimace stand in for a smile. Would he remember how Levi had died, if he thought about it long enough? He had the sense that he’d been there, but not what it had looked like or what had happened. A horrible thought occurred to him.

“Kid? Oi, kid.”

Eren looked up, guts twisting. “I didn’t kill you, did I? In my other form? I know—”

“Don’t be stupid. You couldn’t have killed me if you were trying, let alone by accident. I don’t remember _exactly_ how I went down, but it wasn’t your fault.”

“But I was there?”

Levi tapped the table, looking like he might be about to lie or leave something important out, but all he said was: “You were there.”

How could Eren have forgotten it, then? He had lived for ten years without Levi, if Levi’s theory was correct. He would have stewed on it—wouldn’t he have? Or was that the problem? He remembered sights, smells, feelings—but his thoughts in the other life were a blur.

“How are Erwin and Hange?” he asked, distracting himself from the gnawing feeling in his stomach. He reminded himself he didn’t know if Levi would ever be this forthcoming again, or whether the other man would even want to keep up the relationship now that they’d talked. He couldn’t just sit here feeling sorry for himself.

“Hange’s the same. Exactly the same. They could be born into any world and they’d be the same annoying brat they always were. They’re getting their PhD in some sort of crazy psychology. Erwin’s a family man—or going to be, soon. He’s happy as shit. This is everything he ever fought for—his own personal heaven.”

Eren swallowed. “And you?”

Levi scoffed. “Look at me. Do I look any different? I was always a cynical fuck. Being born into this world didn’t change anything, except now I have no real reason for existing.”

“What do you mean?” Eren asked, his voice tinged with panic. His hands clenched into fists on the tabletop.

Levi glanced at him, his hard gaze softening. “I don’t mean it like that.”

“Yeah?” Eren couldn’t keep the note of anger out of his voice. “How’d you mean it, then?”

“Calm down, kid. I’m not going skydiving without a parachute any time soon. I mean this world. I’m not saying I miss killing titans, but at least that was simple.”

“So what do you do now?”

“I work,” he said. He glanced up at the clock. “Assuming I don’t get fired for this.”

Eren’s eyes widened. “You could get fired?”

“Maybe. Probably not.”

He sounded like it was the least important thing in the world.

“I should let you get to your work, then,” Eren said, unable to disguise the reluctance in his voice.

Levi raised an eyebrow. “I hope you’re planning on giving me your number first.”

“What? I—yes, of course. I didn’t mean—of course I was.” He grabbed for a napkin and bent over it, only to realize that he had no pen. His ears went pink. “Um, pen?”

Levi handed him one, along with a business card.

“It’s not important,” the older man said. “The work, I mean. I can stay.”

Eren wanted that, but he was too flustered to let on. “My classes start soon.” He finished writing his number, adding his address for good measure. “Can I tell Mikasa and Armin about you? We’ve been trying to find Hange for months now, and if Armin knows we’ve found them he’ll finally stop making me read all the research papers that might be theirs.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell them?” was Levi’s only response, and Eren felt embarrassed all over again. Right. Why would Levi be okay with knowing him, but not Mikasa and Armin? That was stupid. Eren finished his drink, hoping it might cover the shaking of his hands. The cup bent inward when he lowered it, he was clutching it so hard.

“Thank you,” he said hesitantly, looking at the tabletop. “I never thought I’d meet you again like this. I thought I’d have to hunt you down.”

Levi ducked his head. “Get to your classes, kid.”

Eren nodded. “Talk to you soon,” he said with difficulty. He stood up, wishing he could touch the other man—but they hadn’t ever hugged or touched much, not to Eren’s knowledge, and he didn’t know how to start.

“Yeah,” Levi said. “Soon.”

Eren shrugged his scarf and coat back into place and made for the door, sending one last glance over his shoulder to look at Levi. It was just one small moment, one step of Eren’s long-legged stride, but he saw Levi sag forward, leaning his face on his hand, and it made Eren’s heart ache to see the captain’s momentary weakness.

What had Eren said, to make him look like that?


	3. Reunited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A reunion of sorts

Armin was as close to angry as Armin got—which was to say, annoyed in a kind of I-can’t-believe-you-were-so-unreasonable way. He paced in front of Eren, making the small dorm room seem that much smaller.

 “You met that guy—humanity’s strongest soldier, a man from the top brass of the scouting legion—on the streets, and _you didn’t call us_? He told you he knew a _bunch_ of others, _including the one we’ve been looking for for months_ , and _you didn’t call us_? What were you thinking? This is the break we needed! What if he gets in a car accident or something?”

Eren drew his legs up onto his bed, feeling guilty. What could he say? That the thought hadn’t even occurred to him?

“It’s not like with you and Mikasa,” he said weakly. “I wasn’t close to him in our past life. It would have been awkward.”

Armin’s brows drew together, and he stopped pacing to look at Eren with an incredulous expression. The fire went out of his tone, replaced with concern. “You don’t think being reincarnated together transcends awkwardness? You could have asked him to fly to the moon with you and he probably would have done it.”

“What?”

“Think about it. If he asked you to go somewhere with him, or do anything, would you refuse?”

Eren shook his head, thinking there were other reasons for his not refusing.

“Exactly. No matter how tenuous your relationship was in that other life—and you spent a lot of time together, so I’m sure he considered you more than just an acquaintance—you have something _big_ tying you together now.”

“I’m sorry,” Eren said.

Armin sighed. “I’m not angry, Eren, just—”

“—disappointed,” Eren finished, earning himself a weak glare. It turned into a smile when Eren snorted.

Armin flopped down on the bed next to him.

“I think I might have been in love with Annie,” Armin said to the ceiling. He said it like it was no big deal, to the point where Eren wasn’t sure what he’d heard.

“What?”

“Well—hearing that theory, about the ages—I’m frustrated. More frustrated than I should be, thinking she might be way young. So I think maybe I care more than I should.”

Eren waited for his friend to say more.

“I guess she made me feel special. She was our enemy, but she made me feel like I was important. She could have killed me multiple times, but she didn’t. And it seemed like she cared what I thought of her, even when she made it clear she didn’t care about others. In that life, that mattered. I thought I was dead weight for such a long time.”

“You were never dead weight. You know that.”

“I know that _now_.”

Eren wrapped his arms around his legs. “You know, _she could have killed me but didn’t_ isn’t all that great a basis for a relationship.”

Armin laughed. “Yeah. What about you?”

“No competition. You want Annie, you can have her.”

“You know I don’t mean that.”

Eren glanced at the door, wondering when Mikasa would be back from class. Somehow, he felt more worried about her finding out than Armin—maybe because his memories told him she hated Levi.

She had reason to.

“How do you always know?” Eren asked instead.

“Your being in complete awe of him kind of gives it away. That, and you would have badgered anyone else until they were forced to come meet us. You just let Levi go, because you’ve always put him a few rungs above ordinary human beings.”

Eren’s cheeks flamed. “I didn’t want to.”

“Yeah? Did he say he had to go?”

“Not exactly. But he was missing work, and he looked like he had an important job.”

“What did he say, _exactly_?”

His blush intensified. “That he didn’t have to go.”

Armin said nothing, but his knowing look spoke for him.

“Come on,” Eren said, feeling embarrassed. “It’s not like he’d welcome it, some kid having a schoolgirl crush on him.”

“You’re not some kid, Eren,” his friend told him gently. “You’re the opposite of some kid. No matter what his feelings are, he would be careful with you. We’ve all been through hell—we won’t put each other through it.”

There was a knock at the door—a knock that sounded suspiciously like a body thumping against the metal—and Mikasa jerked it open a moment later, before either of them had answered. Her face was flushed from running.

“You said you found Levi?” she asked, holding up her phone. “The captain? What did I miss?”

Smiling at her enthusiasm—she cared, after all—Eren filled her in.

 

* * *

 

 

“Kid.”

The voice on the other side was flat, without a hint of excitement or nervousness. It was a stark contrast to Eren nearly dropping the phone when the call connected.

“Hey, um—Levi.”                                                            

“Still wanting to call me captain?”

Eren blushed. “I’ll get used to it eventually.”

“Don’t. It’s endearing. Makes me think I can still order you around. What is it?”

 _You can still order me around,_ Eren thought, before clamping a hand over his mouth. There was no way he was saying that. Stupid, smooth voice trying to trick him into reverting to a fifteen year-old trainee desperate to please his superior. In this world, he and Levi were equals.

Well, theoretically.

“Kid? Come on. You called me.”

“Can we meet?” Eren asked. There was silence on the other side of the line, and he rushed to clarify. “I told Mikasa and Armin. They wondered if maybe all of us could get together. Everyone who lives here.”

“Yeah, I was planning something like that. Hange and Erwin are ecstatic. Well, Hange’s ecstatic—Erwin’s pleased. Are you all free tomorrow evening? He offered his house.”

Eren was fairly sure Mikasa had a martial arts class Friday evenings, but she’d already said she could cancel anything if there was a meet-up. “Yeah, we’re all free. Doesn’t Erwin have a family though?”

“A wife. Don’t worry; if he offered, it’s fine.”

Eren didn’t know if that was true, but he didn’t question it. They moved on, working out the details together. As they talked, Eren thought again about what Armin had said, wondering whether the other man really did value him simply for having been through the same shit he had. It seemed impossible. Levi seemed so aloof, so far above him.

But here he was, arranging a meeting with all of them. Maybe there was something to that.

Or maybe he was just bored.

 

* * *

 

 

Eren slowly lost the ability to speak as they made their way to Erwin’s home in Westchester. Armin and Mikasa noticed, probably, but neither said anything. Mikasa squeezed his hand when they stood on the doorstep, sending him a smile, and he squeezed back. He was glad she was there.

When the door opened, though, all thoughts of nerves fled as a crazy person barreled into them and tried to lift them all up in a hug.

“The golden trio!” Hange yelled, squeezing tight. “My beautiful, beautiful new research subjects.”

“ _Friends_ , Hange,” a tall man standing behind Hange corrected. He was smiling. “Please try to call them friends. You don’t want them running away.”

Eren was glad Hange was still holding him, because the urge to salute when he saw Erwin was almost too much to bear. They loosed their hold shortly after.

“My new _friends_ ,” they said, their large, watchful eyes reminding Eren of Dobby.

“Come in,” Erwin said, pulling Hange away. “Levi’s inside.”

They all followed, shucking their shoes and coats in the entryway and looking around the living room curiously. It was cozy, with a definite feminine touch. A framed wedding picture hung above the mantelpiece, and the woman featured in it stood in the adjacent doorway, wearing a cherry-studded apron and looking like a less-elegant twin.

“More brain-addled people?” she asked, smiling at Erwin. Looking at her, Eren remembered Levi’s words: _his own personal heaven_. He could see why. She was a good foot shorter than her husband, with curling, light brown hair arranged artfully over one shoulder and a sweet, heart-shaped face.

She was also pregnant. _Really_ pregnant.

“This is my wife, Marie,” Erwin said, almost managing to look like he wasn’t bragging. “Marie, this is the golden trio. Armin, Eren, Mikasa.”

“Brain-addled?” Mikasa asked, her voice a little chilly.

“It’s a joke,” came a smooth voice from the kitchen. Levi appeared moments later, looking very casual in jeans and a black long-sleeved T-shirt. “Don’t kill her, please. I remember you being pretty good at it.”

Mikasa opened her mouth to reply, but Armin beat her to it. “Good to see you again, Captain,” he said, grinning.

Levi swiped a hand over his face, and Eren couldn’t figure out if his expression was pleased or annoyed. “Hello, brat. Feel free to use my actual name.”

“We can’t help it,” Armin said. “You had nicknames for so long.” He pointed at each of them in turn. “Captain, commander, crazy scientist. I can show you the lists, if you like.”

Hange laughed. “All that hard work to be a squad leader and I get called _crazy scientist_. I shouldn’t have tried so hard.”

“You deserve it,” Levi said. “You’re a damn eccentric.”

“Thanks, _Captain_.”

Marie held up a hand. “I think this is where I make my escape. Food’s in the kitchen. I’ll be in the dining room fighting with my sewing machine.”

She didn’t have to mention the food twice. They all moved to the kitchen to stack up their plates with artfully prepared finger foods, an array of mini pizzas and baby carrots and all things petite and edible. Eren was slower than the others, distracted when he caught sight of Erwin and his wife standing together in the next room. The door to the dining room was open, and Erwin stood holding his wife in an embrace. He was oblivious to the world as he kissed her, more like a soldier going to war than a husband about to move to the next room. One hand touched her pregnant belly, the other nestled in her hair. Eren wondered how it was possible to love like that, to be so close to someone who didn’t share memories of a world surrounded by walls. It made his throat hurt a little.

“Hey,” someone said, elbowing him in the ribs. His breath caught when he saw it was Levi. “It’s rude to stare.”

Eren blushed furiously, turning to the food with renewed vigor. He threw some food onto his plate without looking, intent on escape even though Levi’s voice had been gentle. He knew his face was still red when he returned to the living room, but Levi didn’t seem at all embarrassed when he strolled in and picked a spot on the couch. Eren sat on the floor on the other side of the coffee table.

“You have to tell me everything,” Hange was saying to Armin and Mikasa. “This life and the other. Did you make it to the basement? I’d kill to find out what was in that basement.”

Armin shook his head. “The technical stuff is foggy. I remember in flashes.”

“People and feelings, right?” Hange said, and Armin nodded. “Same for us. It’s like the world doesn’t _want_ us to remember. Stupid world.”

“Or it wants us to focus on the important things,” Mikasa said. She was looking at her plate. “The chance we have to live proper lives this time. The people we’d like to spend it with.”

“Sentimental bullshit,” Levi said, making everyone look up at him. “The world doesn’t care what we do. It’s a nice thought, sure, but you’re the one who decides. There’s no design. Anyone saying there is one is lying to themselves.”

Eren expected Mikasa to be annoyed, but she nodded and said, “That’s another way of looking at it, but it boils down to the same thing for me. I’m grateful for the chance.”

“Eren died before you, didn’t he?” Hange asked out of nowhere. They leaned forward on the couch, elbows resting on their knees and an intent look on their face. “You remember it.”

Eren looked at Mikasa, his eyes wide. She’d never mentioned anything like that. He didn’t really remember dying—he remembered endless battles, many of which could have been his last—but he’d never thought about what his death might have meant for others.

“As I said,” Mikasa said. “I’m grateful.”

There was an approving look in Levi’s eyes, though he didn’t praise her. “In other news,” he said instead, “This is the worst dinner conversation I’ve ever had to sit through.”

Hange snorted. “Says the man who thinks poop jokes make for polite conversation.”

Armin’s cough sounded suspiciously like a laugh, and Eren caught himself smiling. The moment ended when Erwin walked into the room and settled in the big armchair that seemed designed for him.

“Honestly, Erwin,” Levi said when Erwin was seated, “You can’t keep your hands off her for five seconds? You have company.”

The large man wrinkled his nose at his friend, looking very unlike the commander they all remembered. “Just because you’re a grouch no one in their right mind would settle down with doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t be happy.”

“Oh, thanks. Would you like to insult my sense of humor, too? Hange was just getting started.”

“Your humor is shit,” Erwin said. “Literally.”

This time, Armin didn’t disguise his laughter, and even Eren couldn’t keep his shoulders from shaking as he hid his laugh with his hand. His heart lifted when he saw Mikasa was laughing too.

Had she forgiven Levi for his past life offences?

“What did the special forces team say when you told them you found Eren?” Hange asked Levi. Apparently, that was a safe dinner topic.

“They were pleased. I think all of them still felt guilty about not being able to protect him.”

“ _They_ felt guilty?” Eren asked incredulously. He remembered them splattered about the forest, bodies ruined by the female titan. He didn’t think he’d ever forget.

“I didn’t say they should, I said they did.”

Armin’s mouth was tight. Eren thought of who the female titan really was, and it made him drop the conversation with both hands. Hange picked up the slack.

“I _do_ mean to have you all tell me about your memories,” they said. “Not over dinner—but if you’d let me interview you sometime, it would really help my research.”

Eren’s eyes flicked to their earnest face. “I really don’t remember much.”

They shook their head. “No problem. I’ve had some pretty good results using hypnosis—”

“Hange,” Erwin said, interrupting them. “I don’t think that’s something they need to consider now.”

Eren looked at the commander gratefully. Given yesterday’s revelation, he wasn’t sure how much he wanted to remember.

The manic light in Hange’s eyes dimmed visibly. As if in retribution, they started talking about their research—the unofficial stuff, where they used Erwin and Levi as their test subjects. Eren was surprised that Levi had gone along with it.

“Of course, it doesn’t mean much,” they kept saying. “I can’t draw any conclusions from two people alone. Well, three if you count me.”

“They get the hint,” Levi said after the fourth utterance.

Then it was time for life stories, and everyone but Levi offered up tales of their new lives freely. Through Erwin and Hange, they learned Levi had grown up in France, and that he had won many international martial arts championships in his late teens and early twenties. The information shocked Eren, because he couldn’t imagine Levi signing up for fun. The only explanation that made sense to him was that Levi had been trying to broadcast his location.

Which meant he wanted to be found.

Eren lost track of the conversation for a while after that, caught between pleasure at this proof that Levi cared and annoyance that Eren hadn’t found him that way. Of _course_ he should have been looking for famous martial arts geniuses. Why hadn’t he thought of that?

The night sped past, and soon Marie was back in the living room reminding them all that it was time for bed. They got to their feet, busily exchanging phone numbers and email addresses as if they were still likely to lose people from one day to the next. Eren felt a slight pang when he realized this meant he no longer had an excuse to call Levi, but his disappointment faded when he found himself alone with Levi in the entryway, both of them buttoning up their coats while the others said their goodbyes in the living room. He jumped for a topic of conversation, unwilling to miss this chance to connect.

“It’s your birthday soon, isn’t it?”

Levi’s head shot up, and he looked almost surprised to see Eren standing there. His expression smoothed out a moment later.

“Planning on baking me a cake?”

“Is that a yes? What day?”

“No. Unless you think my old birthday still counts, in which case, the twenty-fifth and French vanilla, please.”

Eren flushed a little. Right. They’d all been reborn—even if he couldn’t imagine Levi being born in any of the warmer months. The twenty-fifth was only a week and a half away, and Eren had school up until the twenty-first.

“I’ll still bake you something, if you like,” he said to the ground. Then he reconsidered. “Although… I share a kitchen with a hundred other college students. I don’t think it’s up to your standards and it might take me until spring to get it there.”

There was a pleased look in the captain’s eyes. “Oh? At least you remember some of the important things. Fifteen years without knowing how to clean properly is enough for any number of lifetimes.”

“I don’t know how I could forget—” Eren started, before the subtleties of Levi’s sentence caught up to him. “Wait. What important things am I not remembering, if I remember some?”

Levi looked away a moment before a hand clamped down on Eren’s shoulder from behind.

“Lots,” Hange said. “Which is why you should let me hypnotize you sometime. If I have to go another lifetime without finding out what’s in that basement I’ll _really_ live up to my nickname.”

Eren turned around, finding the rest of the gang standing behind Hange, ready to grab coats and get going. He and Levi walked outside to make space for them in the entryway, and Eren took it as a sign that their private moment was over until Levi looked up at him, his pale cheeks already turning pink with the cold.

“I’ll text you my address,” the older man said. “In case you need a proper kitchen or just… to talk. For the others, too.”

Eren reminded himself to breathe, unsure what this meant. “The lengths you’ll go to for birthday cake,” he said weakly. “Never knew you had a sweet tooth.”

“You did.”

Levi’s smooth, matter-of-fact declaration was the last blow to Eren’s already lowered speech capabilities. _You did_. No question, no hesitation. Levi was certain that Eren had known his preferences, and there was an intimacy to that that had Eren questioning his memories. But no. Eren was sure—he was _sure_ —that he and Levi had not been intimate in that way. He half-remembered a few nights of fumbling around in the dark with people, but not with the captain. Not with anyone he cared about. So why was Levi so sure?

The arrival of the others saved Eren from another embarrassing moment of silence, and the five of them waved goodbye to Erwin and Marie as they trod down the garden path and up the street to the subway station. Levi and Hange left them there to get on another line, and Eren was alone with his friends once again. He let out a small sigh when he lowered himself onto one of the train seats between Armin and Mikasa.

“That was a lot,” Armin said as the wheels caught and the train started to move. Eren and Mikasa nodded. “I wonder when we’ll see them again.”

“From the look on Hange’s face?” Mikasa said. “Soon.”

Eren privately agreed, though he said nothing. None of them felt the need to discuss all the things they’d learned quite yet; they were too raw, even if nothing bad had been discussed. All the information needed to be processed, and Eren had not forgotten Hange’s little revelation that Mikasa had watched him die, or at the very least outlived him. In their eleven years together in this new life, she’d never once mentioned it.

By the time they got home, all three of them were exhausted and unsteady on their feet. Mikasa mumbled a quiet goodbye before stumbling into her dorm room, and Armin and Eren fell into theirs a moment later. Eren was changing into his PJs when his phone buzzed with a text from Levi: his address, and not a word more.

Eren tried not to think too much of it, but as he climbed into bed he found himself listening carefully for the sound of Armin’s phone buzzing with a similar text.

It never came.


	4. Former-life-birthday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our first encounter with Levi's POV! (Starts in Eren's.)

Mikasa pulled Eren to an empty section of the physics auditorium next Monday when they got to class early. There’d been something strange about her ever since Eren found Levi, and he wondered if it was going to come to a head now. It wasn’t a _bad_ strange, of course—just a quietly thoughtful strange that only Eren and Armin could distinguish from her usual behavior. Eren had assumed she’d tell him what was up eventually.

He’d been right.

“I overheard,” she said as soon as they were seated. The bulb above them was out, giving the illusion of privacy. “When you were talking to Armin that day. I didn’t know what to do, so I pretended I hadn’t heard anything.”

Eren remembered the body slam into the door and her flushed face when she entered. He would have laughed at her ridiculous acting if he didn’t feel so mortified.

“I don’t want you to feel like you can’t tell me things,” she went on. “I want you to be happy—I don’t care who with. As long as I can be a part of it.”

Relief flooded through Eren, swamping embarrassment. He’d worried about Mikasa’s opinion, and now she’d batted aside those worries in one fell swoop. He should have known better than to doubt her.

He swallowed. “You don’t think it’s—I don’t know, stupid? Bad? Unrealistic?”

“Erwin’s comments suggested Levi was single,” she said, ever the pragmatist. “And you’re easy to love.”

She said that last part with a soft smile, without a trace of embarrassment. Eren couldn’t help laughing.

“Only you would think that,” he said. Before she showed up in his life he had ‘does not play well with others’ written on all of his report cards. He’d hated most kids his age on sight, disgusted by their lies and their herd mentality. The feeling had usually been mutual.

Mikasa shook her head. “That’s not true. But if you’re worried, why not find out?” She noted his held breath, his conflicted expression. “What is it? Spit it out.”

“He gave me his address,” Eren mumbled. “We were talking—it made sense. Anyway, his old birthday is coming up, the twenty-fifth. We were joking about me making a cake, and he offered his kitchen. Could I go over there? Would it be…?”

“Would it be what? Are you worried about it leading to something or not leading to something?”

“I don’t know,” Eren said miserably.

Mikasa smiled, looking like a benevolent parent rather than a slightly younger sister. “Well, then I can’t answer for you.”

He sighed, watching other students filter into the classroom around them. He’d agonized all weekend about what Levi might want and think and feel, and he’d been no closer to an answer even before Mikasa’s unhelpful input. A part of him was convinced that Levi wouldn’t have given out his address if he didn’t want Eren to come by, but another part insisted he was being nice. The perpetual caretaker, scowl and all.

“I’ll go over on Christmas Eve,” Eren said suddenly. “Bake a cake. Worst comes to worst, he’ll take it as a joke.”

“Your baking is never a joke,” Mikasa said seriously. It was true; Eren’s kitchen skills this time around were nothing to sniff at, even if most of it had to do with a crippling need to spend time with his mother. She wasn’t the same woman who’d died in the fall of Shiganshina, had no memories of a world surrounded by walls—but she looked and acted an awful lot like the woman he remembered, and he loved her regardless.

“Glad I have your approval,” he told Mikasa.

“Yes. As long as you do spend _some_ of Christmas with me and Armin. We did promise our parents we’d all Skype.”

“I wouldn’t be spending the night,” Eren said, feeling his cheeks redden.

“Hm,” Mikasa said. It was just a sound; she didn’t acknowledge his denial. She tipped her chin towards the podium. “Look. Class is starting.”

A very red Eren faced front.

 

* * *

 

 

Levi walked up the stairs, a familiar burn in his legs and a familiar thought pattern in his head. If anyone had seen him—which was unlikely, since most sane people used the elevator—they’d probably say he had a familiar scowl on his face. It was that thought, that _damned_ thought, that kept the scowl firmly in place. He repeated it as a mantra, every step a repetition.

_We were never lovers._

He had to keep reminding himself of that. No matter what Eren had said to Levi in that long-ago life, no matter how heartbroken he’d looked as Levi slipped away from him, they were never lovers.

If they’d been lovers, Eren would have _remembered_ , whatever Hange said about repressed memories and grieving processes.

Levi gripped the railing hard, pulling himself up higher. He was on the fifth floor—four more stories to go. He would start taking the elevator if it meant avoiding these damned thoughts.

It had been over a week since the get-together at Erwin’s house. Tomorrow was his birthday—former birthday—and he still hadn’t heard back from Eren, not even a return text to say he’d received Levi’s initial message. Levi had been tempted several times to send the message again, but in the end the thought of how desperate he’d seem if the message _had_ gone through the first time was enough to keep him fighting the temptation.

But God damn it. He’d thought the wait was over when Eren came running after him down the street, an old title on his lips. He’d thought it meant Eren remembered, that he wanted to make good on—but no. He’d forgotten his last words to Levi, and there was no way of knowing whether his nervousness during their first meeting had been due to the feelings Eren had confessed to in a past life or just the stupid sense of awe the boy used to have when it came to Levi.

The moral high ground was a lonely place, that was for sure. He was getting tired of it; he didn’t _want_ to wait for a sign from Eren. He wanted to put up his own goddamn sign, but how could he know he wasn’t pressuring the kid into anything? He knew the boy used to worship the ground he walked on; that was a shit basis for a relationship.

Levi was still lost in thought by the time he reached his floor and stepped out into the hallway. He was probably still scowling—but whatever nasty expression he wore disappeared the moment he turned the corner and saw what awaited him in front of his apartment.

 _Figures_ , Levi thought, a bit breathless, caught between laughter and shock. Eren was asleep with his back to the door, legs pulled up and head tipped back. A white plastic bag lay at his feet, the straps still clutched in one of his hands. Levi’s moral quandaries fell away to one single thought.

Would it be okay to kiss him?

He shook himself. No. Of course not. Even if Eren was blocking the way into his apartment. Even if Eren had snuck into the building against building policy. Even if Eren’s mouth was just slightly open, and his hair looked endearing in its perpetual state of disarray. Even then, Levi wasn’t allowed to kiss him.

But he wanted to.

Levi kneeled down, placing his briefcase on the ground next to him. He’d taken off his gloves on the way up the stairs, and now he reached out with his bare hand, cautious. At the last moment, a heartbeat away from caressing Eren’s cheek, he regained control of his motor functions.

He flicked Eren’s forehead, schooling his expression into a look of impatience. “Oi, kid.”

 Eren jumped, nearly scattering his groceries all over the hall. Levi grabbed his wrist to still him.

“Your flair for the dramatic is undiminished,” Levi said, trying to sound bored. Amusement was bubbling in his stomach.

Eren let his breath out in a big whoosh, looking like he’d just had the shock of a lifetime. Levi realized he was still holding the boy’s wrist, and he let go gingerly.

“I thought you’d go home for winter break,” he said. He didn’t mention how much the thought had bugged him, that Eren would just up and leave without saying anything.

“Too expensive,” Eren replied immediately. “We were going to look around more.”

“And now?”

He held up the bag. “It’s your former-life-birthday tomorrow. You did say I could use your kitchen.”

Levi stood up, and Eren followed suit. Bright green eyes watched Levi unlock the door and step inside.

“You know, I wouldn’t mind advance notice,” Levi grumbled as he beckoned Eren forward. He hung up his coat and held out a hand for Eren’s, arranging them on the coatrack by the door while Eren walked into the apartment.

“Why?” Eren asked. “It’s not like you have to clean up or anything.”

That was true enough. Levi watched Eren take in the apartment: hard wood floors, marble-topped counters, sleek black furniture, a large window overlooking the city. He liked his home, but he felt a twinge of embarrassment imagining it through the kid’s eyes. It was painfully obvious that Levi was the only person who spent any length of time there, and what normally felt clean and roomy to Levi began to look sterile and empty with Eren standing in it. Still, Eren made no comment; he just set the plastic bag down on the counter and rolled up his sleeves, still facing away from Levi.

“Do you want anything from the kitchen before I get started?” he asked.

Levi walked around Eren, drawing out one of the bar stools on the other side of the marble counter and sitting down, propping his head on his hand. “What? Am I exiled from my own kitchen now?”

“Not unless you want to be,” Eren said, his cheeks a little pink. “But you just got home. Do you want, uh, tea or anything?”

“Sure,” Levi said, half joking, but Eren went about making it anyway, filling the electric kettle and opening up several cupboards before he found the one where Levi kept his tea. He took out a teabag and a teapot and set them on the counter before looking for other things: mixing bowls, baking tins, a mixer, measuring cups. Levi could have told him where everything was, but he preferred watching Eren search.

“You don’t have to watch me, you know,” the boy said eventually. He sounded flustered. “I won’t mess anything up.”

“What? I’m being companionable.”

Eren snorted. “You’re screwing with me.”

“Only a little. Do you want me to put on music?”

“Depends. Is it horrible classy stuff? I feel like this you would listen to horrible classy stuff.”

Levi covered his smile with his hand. “Oh?”

“It’s true, isn’t it? You listen to smooth jazz while drinking red wine and reading French poetry, or something.”

Levi clamped his jaw shut, but his shoulders shook with laughter anyway. “So that’s what you think of me,” he managed finally, when he’d schooled his expression. “I’ll play one of Hange’s CDs. Nothing that eccentric does is classy.”

Although if Eren’s definition of classy was drinking red wine he supposed Hange fit the bill in at least one way. They fit that bill a _lot_.

He slid down from the chair to mess with the entertainment system. There was a stack of CDs next to the DVD player, all of them written over with marker that spelled out ‘Levi’s cleaning jam’ and a number. Dusters, brooms and apron-bedecked stick-figures with Levi’s haircut decorated the sides. The first mix CD Hange had made for him had started out with Olivia Newton John’s _Let’s Get Physical_ , but they’d improved remarkably after Levi threw that one at Hange’s head.

They’d ducked and cackled for roughly an hour, but at least it got the point across.

Levi got the music started and returned to his seat, rewarded by the sight of Eren already beginning to sway to the upbeat song. There was a cup of tea waiting for him on the counter, steaming gently, and the sight of it made a fist clenched around Levi’s heart. The scene froze before him: the music, Eren’s movement, the steam from the tea.

He wanted this. He wanted this every day of his life. Maybe it would be possible, if he did things right. If he didn’t push too hard, if he wasn’t too mean, if he let himself be vulnerable. It seemed like too much to hope for.

Eren showed no sign of leaving for the time being, though, and Levi took comfort in that. His fear was replaced with a tenuous contentment as he watched, noting the way Eren washed his hands frequently and the way he cleaned as he baked. Had his mother taught him to do that, or was he doing it for Levi’s benefit? It was impossible to know, but in the meantime it was almost therapeutic to watch.

The slight swaying of Eren’s hips as he worked didn’t hurt, either. The boy was beautiful in a careless way that made Levi’s throat tighten to look at. He was no longer a lanky teenager, but there was something boyish about him, a boyishness that didn’t seem like it would disappear with age. Levi found himself noting the way his jeans were fitted just so, and how the long sleeves of his dark green T-shirt did little to conceal the shape of his arms. Clavicles peeked out above the round collar of his shirt, and Levi wondered what it would feel like to press a kiss right there, just below his pulse.

He looked away. This wasn’t good. He’d never approached Eren in their previous life, hadn’t put on any designs—hadn’t even considered the boy in _that_ way for the longest time. All they had was a connection: a sense of responsibility and a great need to do good, though it manifested differently for the both of them. But that connection had morphed into something resembling intimacy, and Levi had found himself relying on the boy even then. Sometimes he needed the boy’s anger to push past his weariness. Sometimes he needed the boy’s enthusiasm for the outside world, his talk of oceans filled with salt and mountains that sprayed fire.

Sometimes he just needed the boy near.

“Oi, kid,” Levi said, his voice low. Eren looked up immediately. “Did you ever see the ocean?”

“Then?”

Levi nodded.

“I don’t think so. I don’t think I would feel so angry this time if I’d seen it.”

There was a twisting feeling in Levi’s stomach. He’d hoped—no, he’d _needed_ the boy to make it to the ocean. Him and the other two. It was one of his comforts, this time around, the thought that maybe they made it, maybe their dreams came true.

“I saw it this time, though,” Eren said, dissolving some of Levi’s dark thoughts. “I love going to see it. But it’s a little sad, too.”

It was that. Eren went back to his baking, almost ready to pour the batter into the tins, and Levi went back to watching, though his good mood had disappeared. Levi had few expectations last time around. His hopes for the future had been in shambles long before he ever set foot in the scouting legion—but he’d never been as cold or uncaring as he’d tried to seem.

When the end came for him, he’d been glad. Not that it was the end—never that—but he found it was all right to die, when Eren was there to cry over him and hold him close and tell him he’d never forget, he’d never let go. Dying in the arms of someone who loved him like that had been a gift he’d never even thought to ask for. There were regrets, but they were small in the face of what he received.

Could Eren fall in love with him again like that, in this world where there were billions of others? Was it selfish to wish he would?

“Do you want to lick it?” Eren asked, startling Levi out of his thoughts. Levi jumped up, looking at the bowl and beaters Eren was thrusting at him. “It’s the best part.”

Levi deflated. He grabbed one of the beaters, looking at it suspiciously before trying the yellowish goop clinging to the metal beater: thick vanilla, too viscous to drip much. Delicious. Levi had been morally opposed to the consumption of unbaked goods for much of his life, but Erwin had assured him long ago that salmonellosis only really occurred when eggs had been outside of a refrigerator for a long time. It was Levi’s second chance at life; he could live a little.

“Good?” Eren asked, watching him intently. Levi made a noise of assent, and Eren’s face broke into a grin that had Levi’s stomach flipping over.

“You have the rest,” Levi ordered.

“Yes, sir,” Eren said, walking around the counter to join him. They sat in silence for a while as Eren cleaned off the other beater and the rest of the bowl, and when Levi looked at him he couldn’t help laughing.

“What?” Eren asked, a yellowish smudge on the side of his mouth.

In answer, Levi reached out and scraped his thumb over the smudge, removing it. He licked his thumb clean and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe off the spit. When he looked up, Eren’s face was pink and he was scrubbing at his mouth furiously, looking embarrassed.

“You could have told me,” he mumbled.

Levi shrugged a shoulder. He could have.

Eren spun on the stool so he was facing the window, leaning forward. He looked flustered, and like he wasn’t going to say anything any time soon.

So Levi began to ask him things, pretending to be bored. In truth, he wanted to know all about this new Eren; he asked about his life before coming to live in the city, his aspirations, why he’d quit taking martial arts lessons even though his sister hadn’t. That last one was a bad direction to take, though, because it shifted the conversation towards Levi’s martial arts career, and Levi had no interest in that.

“Come on,” Eren said after his hundredth deflection. “Please? I want to know. I want to see. You have recordings somewhere, don’t you? I want to see how it compares.”

Definitely a bad direction.

“They might be online somewhere,” Levi said, hoping that would be enough. He had recordings of his matches stored in the back room, but he hadn’t watched them since he retired from competitions, nor did he have much wish to. His trainer still called him from time to time, trying to tempt him out of retirement, but Levi was done with competitions. The fighting had served its purpose when it allowed him to track his old team down, and Eren had found him by different means. Even in this new body, he felt the old weariness.

Maybe it was just his soul that was old and tired.

“You must have them somewhere, right?” Eren asked, and the fact that Levi wouldn’t be able to get any more out of the boy until he showed him the recordings was enough to break his will. He sighed.

“Let me go get them. Stay here.”

Levi walked to the back room, his shoulders tight. He didn’t like going in there. It was a room of necessity, that he sometimes crept to at night when he couldn’t sleep—a safe place where he could shake under the weight of his past life for a few hours and close the door behind him when he was done. There were drawings in there, and paintings—things he’d made that he couldn’t bear to look at once the paint dried—and even though he faced them to the walls he could still feel their presence when he entered.

He kind of wished he’d been as unartistic this life as he was in the last.

Levi stepped into the storage room. It didn’t take him long to find a disc of some competition or other, and he brought it back to the living room between his pinky and forefinger, holding it away from his body as if it was dirty. Eren took it from him with bright eyes and popped it into the DVD-player while Levi settled down to glare at the video that started playing. Eren sat down next to him on the couch, eyes glued to the screen.

Just as Levi had feared, Eren spent the next quarter of an hour fawning over recordings of Levi’s matches, fastforwarding whenever anyone else was on. Levi watched uncomfortably as hero-worship returned to those bright green eyes, noting the way Eren became hyperaware of Levi sitting next to him on the couch: he was tensing up, slowly becoming awkward as a schoolgirl. When the timer went, he was remarkably unsteady on his feet.

If Levi hadn’t seen the look in those eyes as he watched the matches, he would have worried that Eren was scared—that he was remembering the courtroom. That would have been bad.

The sudden awkwardness wasn’t much better.

Once the cake was cooling in the fridge, Eren wanted to go back to watching more of Levi’s matches, but Levi stopped him, taking the remote and turning off the TV. He sat facing Eren on the couch, his knees drawn up, glaring.

“No more until you tell me more,” he said. Eren whined.

“There’s nothing else interesting!” he complained. “I told you everything, and you won’t tell me about yourself. What was France like? Why don’t _you_ talk for a change?”

Levi sighed. He really didn’t like the way Eren would never just talk about himself. Even when Levi asked him questions, the stupid kid tried to answer them succinctly, as if that was what Levi wanted—as if he was still a squad leader asking for a report. It seemed he wouldn’t say more without finding out a few things about Levi, and if Eren wanted to know Levi’s past, so be it.

But _then_ it would be his turn to ask questions.

“Because my story is depressing,” Levi said by way of an introduction. “My parents this time were just as awful as my parents last time, I had to be a shitty little thief _again_ because it was the only way to get myself out of a bad situation, and when I was good enough at fighting and old enough for it I competed for money. That got me in contact with the others and into the US, and once I was here and my contract was up I dropped it like the hot pile of shit that it was. Hand-to-hand combat isn’t going to save this world, and nothing I do here is going to save _that_ world.”

Eren’s mouth hung open, and Levi frowned. It had been a lot of information in one go, but he didn’t think it warranted quite _that_ much astonishment. It took Eren a while to swallow and speak.

“You still want to, don’t you?” he asked.

“What?”

“Join the scouting legion. Free everyone. You’d go back if you had a choice.”

 Levi’s jaw clenched. “Don’t get me wrong; I hate that piece of shit world. But I hate the thought that I failed more. So yeah, I would.”

Eren nodded. He was quiet for a long time, so long that Levi wondered if he’d shocked the kid into a lasting stupor. But then he spoke.

“Me, too.”

Levi bit the inside of his cheek. He wanted to draw the Eren in, hold him, wipe that damn helplessness off his face. Determination still burned behind those fey green eyes, but it had no place to go this time. Levi knew the feeling much too well.

“I have to go pee,” Eren said suddenly, jumping up. “Be right back.”

While he was gone, Levi stood by the window, looking out over the lights and thinking back over their conversation. _Me, too_ , he heard Eren say in his head. A moment later he thought he heard the toilet flush, but then the boy didn’t reappear. Levi waited. And waited.

“Oi, kid?” Levi yelled, when five full minutes had passed and there was still no sign of Eren. “Are you having a really difficult shit right now?”

There was a banging noise that was most definitely _not_ coming from the bathroom, and suddenly Levi was running.

 _Shit. Fuck_. The back room was unlocked. Eren had wandered in. He had to have. Levi ran through the open door, his heart in his throat.

“You’re not meant to be in here,” he said, breathless. He didn’t want Eren seeing this: a room of memories, good and bad, splashed across canvasses and sketchbooks. Eren was sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, holding the canvas Levi most didn’t want him to see: a painting of the day he died.

“I’m sorry,” Eren said, sounding stunned. “It was open—”

“It wasn’t open,” Levi snapped, grabbing the painting from Eren’s hands. Shit. _Fuck_. He placed it back facing the wall, his arms shaking.

“What was that?” Eren asked. “It’s me, isn’t it?”

“None of your business,” Levi said, pulling him to his feet. He expected Eren to stumble along behind him, but he resisted, standing tall and stubborn and too big to budge without hurting him.

“It _is_ my business,” Eren said. “That’s me. It is. I know it is.”

“It’s not this you. This you doesn’t remember. Ergo, not your business.”

“We’re the same,” Eren said, looking down, hands clenching into fists. “Tell me. Tell me what I don’t remember. Is it that picture? Was that when you … you know?”

Levi’s chest was tight. His last memory of that world wasn’t something he could share or talk about. Hange knew, because they’d drawn details from him during hypnosis. He’d cried like a baby as they asked him questions: what he saw, heard, felt. Eren’s broken voice rang in his ears, surrounded him, as if Levi was still lying out there dying in his arms, as if that moment had never really ended. Levi should have died then, properly. He should have let that stupid boy mourn him like the lover he’d never been. He didn’t need this life. This life was confusing, lonely, overshadowed by that one. Dying then would have been preferable.

“Levi? Levi, please.”

He was dizzy, his vision dark and blurry. He stumbled back into the door, legs weak, a hand held up to cover his expression. A moment later he felt warmth along his side, and the strange lurch of gravity. Eren was carrying him. Not that Eren, not the broken one—this new one, who baked cakes and swayed along to music. Did this Eren need him? He felt himself being lowered onto the couch, warm hands brushing the hair back from his forehead.

The way they had then. Oh god, he should have died. He should have died. Then he wouldn’t have to remember.

“I’m sorry I went in,” Eren said. “I was curious. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. I won’t ask you again. Please? Please stop shaking.”

Levi nodded, his jaw clenched tight. The world swam before his eyes. He needed to get in control. This was what happened when you didn’t lock doors properly: things got out.

“I’m here. It’s okay. It’s not happening again. We don’t have to die this time, not like that.”

“You don’t even remember, how can you—”                  

“I remember others,” he said grimly. “Maybe I blocked you out. Maybe I didn’t want to remember. But it’s over, for better or for worse.”

“Then why—”

Shit. No. He couldn’t break down like this, not in front of the kid. He couldn’t ask the kid why they’d fought, why they’d lost all their friends in the most horrific ways possible only to reawaken in a world where their sacrifice had never been necessary. No one knew. That was the shitty thing about remembering: even with the memories in place, there was still no one to answer _why_.

He rubbed his eyes, sat up. Eren’s hand dropped away.

“I’m sorry,” Eren said again. “I’ll ask permission next time. I won’t show up randomly—”

Levi flapped a hand. “I don’t mind the showing up. It’s just… that room. Don’t go in. It’s not good to see.”

“Why not? It’s in my head anyway, all that stuff you painted. And some of it is beautiful.”

Levi knew which pictures he meant: the ones from above, of flying through the air. Memories of his favorite perches, the world spread out beneath him, sunlight through trees.

Sometimes he hated those pictures more than anything.

Eren noted Levi’s clenched jaw and backed off, rolling back on his feet so he was squatting between the couch and the coffee table. He ran his hands through his mussed brown hair.

“I’m sorry,” he said, sounding defeated. “This was supposed to be a fun thing and I screwed it up. You were being so nice and I just…”

“Just what?” Levi asked, brow arched. “Thought ‘oh hey, it doesn’t seem like he’ll kick my ass for this, let’s invade his privacy’? Joke’s on you. Apparently I retaliate with fainting spells now.”

He rubbed his hands over his face, embarrassment coursing through him in thick waves now that the panic had abated. It was an awful feeling, embarrassment, one he wasn’t accustomed to. Staying cool was Levi’s one and only social grace. He didn’t make good jokes, or do small talk, and he was fully aware that his way of looking at people unnerved them, but goddamn he didn’t get embarrassed and he _never_ fainted or panicked. Why hadn’t he coolly told Eren to get out? Why had he gotten scared and emotional?

“I’m going out,” he said, standing up suddenly. Eren scrambled backward a bit.

“Huh?”

“We need food. I’ll go get some. Don’t go in there again.”

Eren swallowed. “I won’t.”

“Promise.”

“I promise.”

 

* * *

 

 

The blast of cold winter air helped Levi recover as he made his way to the nearest take-out place. His appetite returned as he waited for the food to be done, and by the time he returned back to the apartment he was calm, though Eren was still fidgeting.

They ate the food he brought back in almost-companionable silence.

“It’s not midnight yet,” Eren said as he scooped up the dishes when they were done. “But the cake’s ready if you want to have it now.”

Levi leaned forward, putting his elbows on the small, two-person dining table. “Sure. It’s past midnight in half the world.”

Eren smiled. It had been the right answer.

Levi didn’t know what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t what Eren brought over. The cake was perfectly round and perfectly iced, with “Happy Birthday Captain!” written in cursive green letters down the middle and candles positioned on either side of the words. They were positioned like a pair of wings, dark blue candles on the left and white candles on the right.

The survey logo.

Levi blinked at it. Eren had seen his paintings, had witnessed his pain, and here he was shoving that past life in his face. There was a calculating look in the brat’s eyes, one that made Levi feel both angry and alive. He almost smiled.

Everyone processed memories and grief in different ways: Hange tried to get to the center of theirs, Erwin banished his in the blaze of his new life, the special ops team took one positive—the 3D maneuver gear—and tried to bring it into this world.

Levi had a room filled with ghosts and nightmares that he kept locked away—

And Eren baked a commemorative cake.

By the time Eren had made it through a rushed version of _Happy Birthday_ , Levi wasn’t angry. He was amused. Stupid brat. He wasn’t quite sure what the challenge was, but he’d meet it head-on.

Eren, meanwhile, told him to stop laughing and make a wish.

A million wishes crowded Levi’s brain at the command, and for a moment he entertained the thought of actually holding one of them in his head while he blew out the candles—but he had no faith in wishes, and no desire to fool himself.

He blew out the candles in one breath anyway.

Later, with the taste of vanilla still on his tongue and a suddenly-nervous teenager standing in his doorway, he found that wishes were unnecessary.

“Can I come by again?” Eren asked.

Levi nodded. He pressed a key into the brat’s hand, feeling none of the customary embarrassment now. “For you and the other brats,” he said. “Just in case. Hange has one, so it’s no use keeping anyone else out either. Still, knock ten times before coming in or you’re dead.”

Eren stared down at him, hand clenched tightly around the key. While waiting for Eren to speak, Levi noted that their height difference put him at just the right level to press that kiss to Eren’s clavicle.

His feet stayed planted, a promise in the back of his head. _Not yet_.

“Are you sure?” Eren asked. “I won’t bug you?”

 _Not in the way you think_ , Levi replied silently before saying, “You’ll bug me, but that’s okay. Now leave before your sister gets worried.”

“Oh, she’s not—” Eren started, but then he colored. “Yeah, uh, yeah. I will. Bye, then. Happy former-life-birthday. And, uh, Christmas if you’re into that.”

Levi snorted. “You too.”

He stood in the doorway watching as Eren made his way down the hall. The boy turned the corner and was gone, and Levi sighed, stepping back into his apartment and closing the door behind him. He took a moment to lean against it.

Well. That had been interesting.


	5. Hypnosis

Eren was in love.

He hadn’t been sure before. Though he’d known his feelings for Levi were positive—ridiculously positive—a part of him had wondered whether it was just admiration disguised as affection. He’d always been fascinated with the guy, after all; it would be easy to mistake his other feelings for tenderness.

 That conceit hadn’t lasted long once Levi let him into the apartment. He’d felt breathless, unbalanced, much too warm. Having Levi’s eyes on him made him feel like he was standing in a patch of hot sunlight, and meeting them caused his chest to constrict in the most painfully pleasurable way. Eren had found other people attractive, both men and women, but no one made him feel quite so out of control, and no one made his body ache to be touched just by being near.

He liked feeling that way, even if it was torture.

When Levi had looked like he was on the brink of collapse, Eren had been horrified—but the tiniest bit of him was glad for the excuse to touch him, to hold him close, to be in physical contact for the first time in what felt like forever. It had hurt to let go.

But he hadn’t forgotten the reason for Levi’s sudden weakness, and now that Eren knew the nature of his feelings he also knew he needed to remember.

And there was someone who was glad to help him with that.

He’d called them the day after Christmas, keen on getting started, and they’d invited him to come over the next day after asking a few questions regarding his missing memories and what he wanted to find out. Hange had been silent for a little while after he told them—uncharacteristically silent—but they’d agreed, and he’d come over at the agreed-upon time.

That was ten minutes ago.

Hange was bustling in the next room, getting their so-called “hypnosis chamber” in order. They’d left Eren standing in the middle of the apartment after shoving a glass of water in his general direction; all he’d had a chance to say was hello. He wasn’t sure where to sit while he waited, either, since almost every surface had something laying on it. A part of him was tempted to walk right back out.

He didn’t listen to that part.

“Come on in,” Hange called from the other room at long last, voice a little breathless. “I’m ready for you.”

Eren’s pulse kicked up. “Right,” he said. “Coming.”

He let out a relieved breath when he saw the room. Yellow walls, a desk decorated with two purple orchids, a large leather recliner, dim lights. Nothing out of the ordinary, except that this room was the only uncluttered space in the apartment. Hange sat in the desk chair, a clipboard on their lap. They motioned at the recliner, and Eren made himself comfortable.

“So,” they said. “What do you know about hypnosis?”

Eren shook his head. Nothing.

“Thought so! Well, it’s not magic. It won’t work unless you want it to. All I’m doing is switching your conscious mind off—that’s the part of you that perceives time and filters information, the part of you that’s in control most of the time—to talk to your subconscious mind. You’ll be more suggestible, and we’ll be capable of accessing more memories. You’ll be conscious the whole time. You won’t forget afterwards. You’ll just be in a calm, easy place, with just my voice and your memories. Does that sound okay?”

Eren nodded. He was warm, and the chair was comfortable, and Hange seemed different from usual: a steady river rather than a hurricane. They got up to dim the lights further.

There was more explanation about what they were going to do, but eventually they told him to lean back in the chair and close his eyes, saying his conscious mind would be asleep when they finished counting down from twenty. When he asked them—nervously—if it would really work, they told him to listen only to their voice and to imagine the things they described. What they meant was _shut up_ , and so he did.

“Twenty. Your eyelids are growing heavy. It feels good to close them—lightly. You don’t need to press them shut. Nineteen. Your arms are limp against the armrests, completely relaxed…”

Hange continued, and Eren could feel himself drop into a different state of consciousness. It was the oddest feeling, but it wasn’t unpleasant. The world turned to soft edges and quiet warmth. By the time they reached one, he knew it was working even if he didn’t understand how.

“Am I speaking to your subconscious mind, Eren?”

Their voice was gentle, deep. He nodded.

“You told me earlier that you want to know what happened the day Levi died. Can you remember anything from that day?”

He frowned. There was a strange feeling in his belly. The day Levi died…?

“Take me back there with you, Eren.”

His eyelids fluttered. Back to that day. He tried. He thought about it. It was—there. The strange feeling intensified.

“Are you there?”

Throat tight, he nodded.

“What do you see?”

He shook his head.

“You can speak, Eren.”

“I don’t see anything,” he managed after a long moment. He was there. He felt it. Somehow he was there, inside of his memory. But there was nothing, and a part of him was thinking _this isn’t working, this isn’t working._

“What do you feel?”

“I—” he started, and his throat closed up completely. The warmth and comfort of the chair fell away, and his mind blazed with pain. A grimace pulled his lips back from his teeth, his eyes beginning to overflow with tears. He choked on sobs.

“What do you feel, Eren?”

“Pain!” he gasped out. Oh god, pain. So much of it.

“Physical pain?”

“No,” he sobbed. “No.”

“Let yourself feel it,” Hange said. “You’re there. The day that Levi died. This feeling is your gateway.”

He sobbed, but they were right. Through the helplessness and fear he could sense things now. Warmth in his lap, a hand wrapped around his own. Levi looking up at him with a strange smile, one Eren had never seen before. There was a tourniquet bound around one of his legs, and Eren’s stomach lurched when he saw why: the leg was gone, bitten off near the hip. Wasted 3D maneuver gear hung off him, and there were other wounds. His head was cradled in Eren’s lap.

“Levi—” Eren gasped. “He’s…”

“He’s what, Eren?” Hange’s voice seemed to be coming from very far away.

“He’s with me. He’s looking at me.”

“Are there others?”

Eren shook his head. They were alone in a field, the sun hot on Eren’s back. This couldn’t be where Levi had died. There were no trees, no houses, no good places for the maneuver gear to hook into. Eren described the scene to Hange, voice wavering.

“Is he saying anything?”

Tears continued to track down Eren’s cheeks. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“It’s okay, Eren. Just wait. There’s no rush. Tell me when you know.”

Eren tried. He really did—but it didn’t feel like there was any more stored in his memory, and he hated it. He wanted to know more. Why the hell was Levi smiling? He was dying. Eren was in more pain than he’d ever been in, save perhaps for when he saw his mother die, and Levi was smiling.

“Why?” Eren asked, his voice a sob.

“What is it?”

“He’s smiling. I don’t understand.”

There was a sigh, not in that long-ago memory but in the dimly lit room he and Hange sat in. “Do you think you can remember more?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t think I can.” He couldn’t stand much more, either.

“It’s okay, Eren. You’ve done really well. I’m really proud of you.”

Normally Eren would have found that condescending, but the critical part of him was still switched off. He felt comforted; he had no doubt they meant it.

“I’m going to bring you back now, okay? Gently. I’m going to count to twenty, and when I get to twenty you’re going to wake up rested and relaxed. Okay? One. You feel the pain of the memory dropping away. Two. You feel your body, lying in the chair…”

They counted up, and when Eren opened his eyes he wasn’t frantic anymore. He took a few deep breaths, amazed at how calm he felt, and when he looked at Hange he did so with new admiration.

“You’re amazing,” he breathed.

Their lips quirked up. “You’re a much better patient than Levi. He always curses me when he comes back up.”

“I’m not surprised.” Eren felt scraped raw, and Hange had been the one scraping. Still, he couldn’t forget their gentleness.

“How are you feeling now?”

“I feel…” Not desperate, like during the session. Comfortable. Warm. A little confused. “I guess… okay. Disappointed. I didn’t learn much.”

“You regained a memory you thought you’d lost. That’s a _lot_. I’m not always that lucky.”

Eren looked away from them, at the wall. The room was still dim, and it made it easier to confide in them somehow. “Levi remembers it, but he won’t tell me.”

“Mm.”

He looked at them. “You know, though.” It wasn’t a question.

Hange sighed. “It’s not my place, Eren. Even if I wanted to.”

“Just why he was smiling. Please?”

“I’ll tell you what I think, from personal experience, with no guarantee that it’s the truth—okay?”

Eren nodded, eyes bright. He set the chair to recline a little less, wanting to sit up for this. Hange set the clipboard down and folded their legs, placing their clasped hands on top of them.

“All scouts in those days knew they would die in action,” they said, “But some accepted it better than others. From what I knew of him, Levi expected to go down fighting, and I don’t think he ever thought he’d live to see a bright new world. It wasn’t an optimistic view, but we all dealt with the depressing reality as best we could.”

 _Some better than others_ , Eren thought, remembering their endless enthusiasm. Hange had carried more than a few people’s hopes on their capable shoulders.

“Levi had also seen a lot of people dying or dead by then. More than most. All of us knew it was a luxury to get time to say goodbye; usually it was a fall or a set of teeth and that was it. You were lucky if someone else saw it happen at all. You know all this, of course, but maybe you don’t remember it very well. Anyway, from the scene you described, it seems like you and Levi were somewhere quiet at that time.”

“I think I was carrying him before it happened,” Eren said. “Maybe. In my titan form. It’s the only thing that makes sense, that I carried him there, because I don’t think we could get there with the gear.”

Hange nodded. “You might have been trying to get him to safety.”

Eren swiped at his eyes, worried that the tears would start again. “Then why didn’t I keep going?”

“Not enough time? He would have known his chances, given his injuries. Might have stopped you from going any further. If you were in your titan form on either end of the event, it might explain why it’s so fuzzy for you. You don’t remember anything from being a titan, do you?”

“Nothing,” Eren confirmed. “So…”

They sighed. “Given everything I’ve said, I expect that being somewhere peaceful with a friend to mourn him was an unexpected pleasure. None of us really want to die alone, and Levi saw so many of his companions die he probably didn’t expect to have anyone left by the time he did. Having you there would have been something to smile about.”

There was something sticking in Eren’s throat. “That’s really sad.”

Hange flicked his chin, abruptly changing from this strange, solemn version of themself. “So make him happy this life to make up for it.”

“Me?”

“You, me. All of us! We’re all responsible for each other.” They stood, wrapping an affectionate arm around his neck and ruffling his hair. “You know what made me happy yesterday?”

“Um, research?”

“Good guess!” they said. “But no. Cake! Levi gave me some of the cake you made. Delicious!”

They more or less dragged him out of the room, back to the cluttered kitchen. While they got out two slices of cake—without asking if he wanted any—they asked him, “So what do you intend to do now that you know?”

“I don’t know,” Eren said. “I don’t think I remembered the important bit.”

Hange didn’t say anything, just waited for a better justification. It worked.

“I think he’s angry at me for not remembering. If I tell him what I’ve remembered and it’s not the part that mattered, he’ll just be disappointed.”

They considered that, sliding a plate of cake across the counter at him. He stuck the little cake fork in a little harder than he meant to, and ate the first few bites in pensive silence.

“Eren,” Hange said, “You give speeches sometimes, don’t you?”

“Huh? No. I’m not good at public speaking.”

“Not those kinds. When you’re angry or excited.”

Eren remembered the other life, when so many had joined the scouting legion, even the ones who were gunning for the military police. “I guess.”

“Do you remember what you say then?”

“Not specifically. I just say whatever comes up.”

“And after?”

He blinked, realizing what they were getting at. When Eren got riled up, he often found himself saying things he hadn’t meant to, and afterwards he was never quite sure how much he’d said or how he’d phrased it. His words to Levi might have been like that: rushed, impassioned, hard to remember once said, but there was no way of knowing if that was the cause of the problem. Would Levi accept it as an excuse?

“You forget, don’t you?” Hange’s voice was kind.

“I don’t remember specifics, no. But I think you’re making excuses for me.”

They finished their slice of cake. “Maybe I am.”

He picked at the red plastic counter as he forced out, “You’re close to Levi, right?”

They glanced at him shrewdly. “What is it you want to know, Eren?”

He deflated, and his words came out in a rush. “Does he think I’m annoying?”

Hange made a small noise—some little sound of intrigue—and leaned across the counter, peering into his face. Their crooked nose was close to his, bespectacled eyes gleaming with interest. “Oh? Why would you think that?”

Eren looked away, blushing.

They poked his chin. “No, he doesn’t.”

“Really?” He looked into Hange’s eyes, trying to read the truth in them.

They didn’t look away, which was unnerving but somehow reassuring. “Really. Want to know another secret?”

Eren nodded.

“I think he’s lonely.”

Eren’s stomach tightened. He thought of that spotless, sleek apartment with the table for two and only one toothbrush in the bathroom. He’d fallen asleep thinking of it last night, imagining Levi going about his day: always alone, always efficient, always cleaning up after himself. There was something hopelessly depressing about it, something that made Eren want to swoop in like a tornado to mess things up. He thought Hange was a kindred soul. Did they mean to suggest he should just barge in on Levi whenever he felt like it?

Hange had watched his expression change as he thought all this, and there was a pleased look on their face. “Exactly,” they said, as if they’d read his mind. Maybe they had.

Eren didn’t know what to say in any case, so he finished his cake in silence. Hange changed the subject then, beginning to talk of inconsequentials, and Eren let them. He pretended interest when they went back to talking about hypnosis, and made a few comments of his own, but his mind was still on Levi and how he shut himself away from others. When Hange mentioned some research that needed doing, Eren was glad to make an excuse and tell them he had to go, thanking them for all their help.

He had a lot of thinking to do.

 

* * *

 

 

Hange watched Eren go, a little smile on their lips. Eren’s shoulders were high, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets, but Hange knew the tension in his posture was the good kind—not the nervous, painful tension he’d brought into the apartment when he first came in. They smiled when they spotted pinkish color in his cheeks as he turned to go down the next corridor. When he disappeared from view, Hange stepped back into the apartment and closed the door behind them, still smiling.

There was paperwork to be done, and there were articles to be read—but first there was another order of business to attend to.

Hange pressed the phone to their ear, listening to the phone ring a few times before Levi picked up.

“Hello?” he said, annoyance in his voice.

“Levi,” they said, grinning. “You can thank me later.”

“What?”

“Oh, nothing.” They would have liked to have a telephone cord to twiddle with. As it was, Hange contented themselves with falling backwards onto the couch after a short twirl.

“Stop it, glasses. I can hear you grinning from here. What is it?”

They decided to stop being coy. “Eren came over today.”

There was a taut silence on the line. “And?”

“A few interesting things. Not my place to tell you. But I did tell him a few interesting things of my own.”

“You better spill,” Levi said, his voice very low.

“Mm. No, I don’t think so. Not until you two are honest with each other. He thinks he annoys you, you know.”

Hange thought they could feel his sigh blowing in their ear even through the phone’s speaker.

“I told him he doesn’t,” they added. 

“He does. He’s an idiot.”

“For not realizing?”

They could imagine Levi’s face pinching, his muscles tightening. He didn’t like talking about this.

“Don’t, Hange.” There was a fragile note in his voice, and Hange nodded even though he wouldn’t see it.

“I won’t,” they said, letting gentleness creep into their words. “I just wanted to—” _hear your voice_ “—make sure you hadn’t gotten constipated and died on the toilet.”

Levi laughed, and they grinned.

“I’m outliving you this time, glasses, so don’t count on it.”

They put up the expected protest, launching into a tirade about cruciferous vegetables, but their heart wasn’t in it. Eren’s memory had affected Hange, after all, and it did them good to hear Levi sounding so robust, so full of insults and cranky insights and poop jokes. He seemed to know they needed to hear his voice, because he let them talk his ear off for longer than usual, and he doubled the insulting retorts.

He was quietly sentimental that way.

When the call ended, Hange sat back with a smile. Maybe tonight they’d go over and force some wine and a truly awful movie on him.

That was the point of second chances, wasn’t it?


	6. New year's resolutions

The sky above New York City was alive with color: greens and pinks and purples and quickfire explosions of red-white-blue. Eren’s favorites fizzed to gold after the first burst of color, and he wondered what it would be like to maneuver through the lightshow.

Terrifying, probably.

Armin and Mikasa stood on either side of him, their shoulders pressing against his, their faces reflecting the colors of the explosions. The three of them were on the roof of their dorm, high above the cars and screaming drunks, and there was no one to see the strange solemnity in their postures or smell the lack of alcohol on their breath.

It wasn’t much of a party, but Eren had nowhere else he’d rather be.

A noise from his phone told him his happy-new-year text had finally sent, and his stomach flipped a little. He wondered if Levi was still awake, if he was watching the same fireworks. Hange was probably with him.

“It goes on for so long,” Mikasa said. “It’s like the fourth of July back home.”

“Are you complaining?” Eren asked. He hadn’t missed the liquid shine in her eyes.

Her hand closed around his, and she shook her head. He squeezed her hand through their gloves, and Armin bumped him in solidarity.

“Who knew, huh?” Armin said, to which they all smiled. _No one_ , was the answer. No one could have anticipated this life.

A second noise from Eren’s pocket alerted him to a new text, causing another stomach flip. After waiting half a minute, hoping to appear casual, Eren drew out his phone.

 _Happy new year, Eren_ , a new text said. Levi’s reply—or a text he’d sent earlier, only just come through.

Eren put the phone away, trying not to look too happy. Not _brat_ or _kid_ or _idiot_. _Eren_. The phone felt very warm in his pocket, even in the cold night.

When he looked at his companions, he realized they were both smiling at him. Worse: he was smiling, too—and he couldn’t seem to stop.

“Shut up,” he said.

They turned back to the display with no further comment.

 

* * *

 

 

Eren’s new year’s resolution to spend more time with Levi was a great idea. However, not warning Levi that he’d used the spare key to let himself into the apartment while he was gone hadn’t been, and there was no way of correcting the mistake once made. In Eren’s defense, he’d forgotten his phone.

Furthermore, he hadn’t expected Levi to keep stripping past the coat and scarf he wore. Eren tried to make a sound to alert the other man to his presence, really, but it stuck in his throat as he watched Levi loosen his tie and begin to unbutton his dress shirt, his movements uncharacteristically careless.

By the time Levi looked up he was almost to the bottom of the shirt. He came to an abrupt halt when he saw Eren sitting red-faced and attentive on the rug in front of the coffee table.

A lesser man would have jumped.

Eren swallowed painfully, finding it hard not to look at the pale expanse of chest visible under Levi’s opened shirt.

A slim eyebrow rose. “Now I can’t help wondering how far you would have let me go before you said anything.”

Eren’s already-flushed face filled further, and he didn’t need a mirror to know he was at maximum redness. He could feel the heat radiating from his cheeks. With great effort he looked away. “I’ve seen you—everyone’s seen—”

“Not in this life they haven’t. Maybe I have a scandalous tattoo.”

No force in the world could have stopped Eren’s curious eyes from searching out Levi’s visible skin then. “You do?” Eren asked, voice breathier than he’d intended.

Levi laughed. “Wow, kid. Cool down. I’ll be right back.”

Eren was mortified, but not quite mortified enough to miss the fact that Levi had come in looking like a storm about to happen and left with a smile on his face. If it wasn’t for the stomach-curdling embarrassment, the shirt incident would have been a huge positive for both of them. Eren didn’t exactly hate the way the image of Levi undressing was imprinted on his retina.

Not for the first time, he wondered whether he should just confess to the older man. At worst, he’d be rejected. At best, he could be sliding his hands over that smooth-looking chest within the hour.

But just thinking of confessing made him feel sick with nerves.

After a minute or two, Levi came back in wearing a long-sleeved blue T-shirt and loose black pajama pants, which was somehow just as distracting as the open dress shirt: now he looked soft, and like he might let Eren pull him close under a blanket.

“Are you doing homework here?” Levi asked, opening the fridge and peering inside. So he’d noticed the sprawl of books on his coffee table.

“I was, yeah.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be on break?”

“Semester system,” Eren answered easily, waiting for the next question: _why are you doing it here?_ He’d prepared a clever lie about wifi being down in the dorms.

The question never came.

“Do you want anything?” Levi asked instead.

 _You_ , Eren thought. _Here. Pressed up against me._

And a moment later: _Shit, I feel like I’m fifteen all over again._

“I’m fine.”

Eren continued studying as Levi padded about the apartment fixing himself dinner. The older man settled on the couch behind Eren when he was done. “Mind if I watch something?” he asked.

Eren closed his notebook and scooted back against the couch. “Study break,” he announced.

“Oh? Maybe I shouldn’t. Wouldn’t want you to—”

“I’ve been here two hours,” Eren interrupted. “I deserve a break.”

Again Eren had left himself wide open to questions about his being here and again Levi didn’t take the opportunity to ask. Instead, he just turned on the TV and started flipping through Netflix options. After a moment he tapped the remote against Eren’s shoulder.

“You pick,” he said.

Eren craned his neck, looking back at Levi. “You sure? I could be really into _Toddlers and Tiaras_ for all you know.”

“Hange likes to get drunk and watch _Say Yes to the Dress_. Your picks can hardly be worse.”

Eren laughed at the thought of Hange drunkenly throwing commentary at reality TV shows. It was a wonderful new insight into Levi’s life, even if it meant Levi’s _Recently Watched_ list didn’t necessarily reflect his tastes. Eren would have liked to know.

They watched an episode of some crime show together, and afterwards Eren studied some more while Levi read on the couch— _not_ , Eren noted, French poetry. When Eren’s stomach rumbled, Levi made him a plate of food without asking if he wanted any, and Eren scarfed it down.

It was nice. Easy. Or it would have been if Eren could stop being so aware of Levi lounging behind him. The back of his neck tingled constantly, and at least half his time was spent thinking of ways to accidentally brush up against the other man. Except, well—even if Eren didn’t have Mikasa’s grace, he certainly didn’t have the clumsiness to excuse falling all over the couch. Another fainting spell was certainly too much to hope for.

The evening passed, and there was no talk of later—hardly any talk at all—until Eren started packing up. Levi closed his book and propped himself up on his elbows.

“So is this a continuing thing?” he asked.

 _Do you want it to be?_ Eren wanted to ask, but he was too worried Levi would say no. “If you don’t mind,” Eren said instead. “I like being able to spread out.”

“You share a room?”

Eren nodded. “With Armin. Like old times.”

“Figures. I had a hard time imagining you with some random roommate.” Levi tapped the book against his thigh absently, and Eren swallowed. Had a hard time imagining it? Like he’d tried?

“Yeah, no. We play video games with some of the other people on our floor sometimes, but it’s mostly just the three of us.”

“Like old times.”

Eren smiled. “Yeah. Anyway, thanks for letting me hang out here.”

He nearly flinched at how that came out, embarrassed at the determinedly casual words. How pubescent could he sound? He’d lived into his twenties in that other life, he was pretty sure, and that meant he ought to never again start a sentence with ‘anyway’, or mention ‘hanging out’.

“Any time,” Levi said.

Eren forgave himself immediately.

 _We’ll see if you mean that_ , he thought as he left the room.

 

* * *

 

 

Eren had become a permanent fixture in his life, and Levi wasn’t complaining.

He didn’t come over every day—classes started soon after his inaugural visit—but Levi got used to the sight of him sprawled out over the rug or the couch when he came home from work. Some weekends Eren came over alone, and other weekends he brought his friends as well as an _XBox_ and a handful of multiplayer games. Hange liked to join them during these times, and Levi was surprised the neighbors hadn’t complained about the noise yet. Whenever Hange and Eren had their turns at the same time it sounded like there was a double homicide in progress.

Weeks passed this way, and the apartment began to change with the increased activity. There was a blanket draped over the back of the couch for when Eren napped there; there was a larger variety of food in Levi’s pantry to suit everyone’s tastes; the _XBox_ started being left behind more and more often until it was accepted as belonging at Levi’s, and the living room stopped smelling quite so heavily of all-purpose cleaner.

It wasn’t that Levi hadn’t known he was lonely, but somehow he hadn’t realized quite _how_ lonely he was until Eren inserted himself into his life. The days when he walked into his apartment to find Eren there were good days, and there was no use pretending otherwise; he didn’t even feel the need to. He’d given Eren chances to leave, to stop coming over, and Eren hadn’t taken them. It was becoming obvious that he didn’t want to.

That worked for Levi.

Unfortunately, it didn’t mean that everything was resolved. Instead, Levi felt curiously reluctant to work anything out. Now was good. Eren falling asleep on his couch was good. Eren helping him cook was good. Eren smiling up at him when he came into the apartment was good.

But it couldn’t last. There was a strange tension between them, caught in smiles and half-finished sentences. It was becoming more obvious every day that this quiet companionship was an in-between thing, and Levi found himself fearing whatever revelations were to come.

He wasn’t _good_ at relationships; having something to lose made him nervous. How had he forgotten that?

They’d gone a full month without ever broaching the subject before a bottle of really cheap pink stuff Levi was unwilling to call “wine” took the problem out of their hands. Levi wondered whether Hange had left it in his apartment on purpose; Hange probably thought they were helping the situation along with the alcohol.

 _Hange_ didn’t have to deal with Eren falling apart on their couch, though.

“I never knew you’d be a sad drunk,” Levi said when it happened, his voice edged with exasperation. He sat down next to Eren and patted his shoulder awkwardly. Eren’s shoulder tensed at the touch, and his hand came up to fling Levi’s aside. The kid looked at him with overbright eyes for a moment before hiding his face in his hands again, and Levi tried not to take it personally.

He waited. It wasn’t the first time he’d been drunkenly railed at for things that happened in that life, and even in this new setting it felt familiar. Levi could have listed dealing with aggressive, grief-stricken soldiers under “special skills” on his resume if he thought past lives counted.

Except the railing refused to start. Eren shook quietly and didn’t so much as peep, which didn’t seem like Eren.

“What brought this on?” Levi asked carefully. They’d been playing Halo together—badly, due to the alcohol—before Levi left for the bathroom, and he’d come back to this. The slight buzz he’d had before was gone.

“I don’t know what happened,” Eren said into his hands.

“You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“I remember you. I remember you dying. But I don’t remember how I let that happen.”

“Oh? Let, hm? You think you could have stopped me?”

“I _should_ have! If I had all that power, I should have been able to save you!” Finally Eren was looking at him, his breathing ragged and his face flushed with anger and alcohol. “And I can’t remember how I messed up, and I hate it.”

Levi sighed. “You didn’t mess up. You were in titan form. Our group was overwhelmed holding the titans off while a convoy we were protecting escaped. For what it’s worth, I believe the convoy made it.”

“Your _leg_ —”

“What else do you remember?”

“Just some field. You dying. I don’t remember what we said, just that—just that you were smiling.”

“I was?”

Eren nodded, and Levi felt the strangest urge to blush. He remembered Eren’s head haloed against a blue sky, his rushed words, his tears. He didn’t remember smiling.

“I want you to tell me why,” Eren said. His hands were steady now, though his cheeks were still flushed. “What did I say? What did you say?”

Levi looked away, imagining what he could tell the boy. _You said you loved me. You said you were going to save me. You kissed me. I let you._ It was all true, but it was awkward—as if he was using Eren’s previous self against him.

“I’ll tell you sometime,” Levi said. “Not today.”

Eren stood up. “That’s not good enough.”

“Because you happen to be drunk and impatient right now? Ask me another time.”

“Stand up.”

Levi cocked an eyebrow, but he did as he was told. Eren faced him, jaw set.

“You going to fight me, kid?”

“I ought to.”

Levi knew the boy was drunk, knew it wasn’t fair to make fun of him, but he couldn’t help snorting. “You couldn’t lay a hand on me if you tried.”

Predictably, his words were met with a swing of Eren’s fist—a swing Levi could have anticipated with his eyes closed. Levi stepped back toward the window, away from the coffee table and the couch. A series of surprisingly well-coordinated punches followed him.

Either Eren wasn’t stumbling drunk or he was pretty well-trained. Better than he’d let on, anyway—but that didn’t make up for the fact that there was no force behind Eren’s movements. If anything, the punches seemed to be turning into grabs as the misses continued.

Levi let himself be backed into the wall.

The feints stopped. Eren placed his arms on either side of Levi’s head, leaning over him so his breath gusted Levi’s hair. He was close; too close. “Tell me,” the kid said.

“Eren—” Levi started, then stopped, lungs aching. It was hard to breathe with Eren surrounding him like this, his warmth pressing in from all sides. He could push the boy aside—he could leave the boy in a crumpled mess on the floor—but all he wanted to do was tug him closer. He wanted Eren to press into him until that angry heat sank beneath his skin and became a part of him, too.

He _wanted_.

“Levi, please.”

The ragged plea made his heart ache. His hands shot up, coming to rest against Eren’s chest as if to push him away. They stayed there: flat, useless. He thought he felt Eren pressing into his palms, felt Eren’s face turning into his hair. Warm breath ghosted down the back of his neck.

“You’re drunk, Eren.”

“Am I?” The teen took a challenging step forward so there was hardly any space between them, and the ache in Levi’s lungs intensified. _Shit_.

“You confessed to me,” he said all in a rush, so the words sounded like a sigh. “I didn’t want to tell you. Seems wrong to hold it against you—”

Eren stepped back, taking all the room’s warmth with him. Levi could breathe, finally, but his chest still felt constricted. He looked away, unable to meet Eren’s intense gaze.

“You _knew_? All this time?”

Levi folded his arms and steeled himself. This wasn’t like him. He’d turned facing things head-on into an art, so much so that his face tended to freeze into a look of mild disapproval if he wasn’t modulating it. With sheer force of will he met Eren stare for stare.

The boy didn’t look away.

“Knew what?” Levi asked. “People say a lot of things in those situations. I should know.”

“You’re playing dumb on purpose.”

_I’m giving you your chance to leave, idiot. I’m doing this for your sake._

He stepped away, around the looming boy. “You should go lie down. Sleep it off. We can work things out in the morning.”

He’d almost made it to the hallway when Eren’s voice stopped him.

“You were smiling,” Eren said. He sounded angry. “Were you laughing at me?”

“No.”

“Were you happy?”

 _Happy_. It was the wrong word, but it got the point across. “Yes,” he said without turning.

There were footsteps, and suddenly Eren was standing behind him. “Look at me,” he said, and Levi turned.

Eren’s face was flushed. His hands were balled into fists, and his mouth was pressed into a line. “I confessed,” he said. “And then _you_ said…”

Levi looked away. “I don’t know what I said, Eren. You were still a kid then. You’re still one now—”

“Make up your mind,” Eren interrupted, placing his hand on the side of Levi’s face so he’d meet his eyes. “You pretend that you’re an old man and I’m a kid, but I lived for ten years in that world without you. If we’re going by that timeline—and it seems like you are—I’m not a kid anymore. So either stop acting like an old man or stop treating me like a kid. You have to pick one.”

The hand dropped away.

Levi sighed. Eren was right; he wasn’t a kid. He hadn’t been a kid since the walls fell, not really, but that didn’t stop Levi from wanting to protect him. Levi didn’t really know his own capacity for love, didn’t know if it was enough to sustain another person, and he was afraid of finding out it wasn’t.

In the other life, he’d protected Eren from monsters and politicians and the darkness within.

In this life, Levi had nothing to protect him from but himself and his doubts, the crushing sense that maybe he wasn’t a good person for anyone to be around. Could he really keep up with Eren’s passion in this life?

“Levi,” Eren said. “Stop pushing people away.”

“I’m the past, Eren. The others—they’ve moved on. I’ve barely even tried.”

“And I have? You’re confusing me with Armin and Mikasa. I don’t need to be well-adjusted. I don’t need you to well-adjusted. I just…”

 “You just what?”

Eren’s head was lowered, but his eyes met Levi’s. “Don’t push me away, okay?”

Levi didn’t move, not sure what he was meaning. Now? Or in general?

He got his answer, though, when Eren leaned in. Levi remained where he was, quietly acquiescent, and Eren’s mouth pressed against his, warm and still tasting of the too-sweet wine Hange had left. Levi’s hands twitched with the desire to pull him closer. For a long moment all Levi could feel was his own thundering heartbeat and that warm press of lips, Eren’s hands bunched in his shirt—and then Eren stepped back, his face flushed. Levi didn’t have long to see it; Eren put his arm over his face a moment later, as if in great embarrassment or exasperation—Levi didn’t know which.

“Look,” Eren said from under his arm. His mouth was still visible. “I’m going now. I’ll leave you alone for a bit. For a week. And then I want you to tell me how you feel.”

Levi’s guts twisted. “Eren…”

Eren shook his head and collected his backpack from where he’d thrown it down earlier, a vulnerable look on his face—no wonder he’d been hiding it.

“Don’t say anything now,” he said. “Tell me then. And remember I want this. You don’t get to decide for me. You only get to decide for yourself.”

He collected his coat and scarf and opened the door.

“I mean it,” he said. “You can’t reject me and say _it’s for your own good_. You have to reject me flat-out, and say you don’t want it.”

For a moment, he waited—though for what Levi wasn’t sure. He’d already told Levi not to talk. The moment ended, and the door to the apartment closed. Levi sank to the floor, his head in his hands.

A week to sort out how he felt. A week to decide whether or not he trusted Eren’s judgment.

 He wondered if he’d last even that long.


	7. Late night visitor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning: first smut scene upcoming. If sex makes you uncomfortable, copy this line: "His eyelids were getting heavy" and paste it into your ctrl+f to skip when you start feeling uncomfortable. Recommended line for doing this at is, "Perfection awaited."

Living in the dorms was pretty bearable by Eren’s standards. The showers were filthy a lot of the time, and there was always noise when there shouldn’t be, but compared to life in a military barracks there really wasn’t any room for complaining, and Eren didn’t, generally. He didn’t spend a lot of time in there, and he didn’t really care what his dormmates did to brighten the place up.

Except the seasonal decorations—so festive this last winter, with the lights hanging up around people’s doorframes—were starting to get to him.

Pink hearts. Roses. Did it _have_ to be February?

“This is a good thing,” Armin told him again and again. If he was put off by Eren’s recent habit of languishing on the bed with his arms covering his face he didn’t say so. “This way you’ll know, once and for all.”

“Easy for you to say,” Eren moaned. He felt like his guts were being ripped out. He was the William Wallace of languishing teenagers. He was every martyr that had ever lived, and he’d done it to himself.

“Are you doing okay in your classes?”

“Really well, since that’s my excuse for being at Levi’s all the time. I’ll probably fail them now.”

It had been three days since Eren had given his foolish, childish, definitely very very bad ultimatum.

“He hasn’t rejected you.”

“He will. Except it won’t be a rejection. He’ll just never talk to me again.”

Armin exhaled sharply. “If he’s that kind of person, why do you like him so much?”

Eren rolled over, burying his face in his pillow. The answers were endless. He liked the way he felt when he was with Levi, sort of nervous but also self-assured, like he was where he was meant to be and doing what he was meant to do. He liked the way Levi asked questions, his tone level, his gaze direct. He knew his feelings for Levi had started out as hero-worship—and he still thought that seeing Levi fight was a privilege like no other—but they’d evolved into so much more.

His feelings had already moved past hero-worship in that other life. He knew he and the captain had gotten even closer in the months before Levi’s death; he knew that the measuring looks he remembered had happened in that time period, and that there had been a sense that perhaps something was beginning between them. Death had gotten in the way before he could find out if that was true.

This time it wasn’t death but the mark it left that was in their way. Just as Eren knew he loved Levi, he also knew Levi was damaged. Not irreparably so, perhaps--he’d tracked down others and made a life for himself, after all—but enough that he wouldn’t reach out.

And that was why Eren languished.

“He thinks he’s helping,” he told Armin. “Thinks I have some bright future as long as I can stop living in the past.”

“Well,” Armin said, looking up from his computer screen, “He’s clearly never met you.”

Eren threw the pillow at him, and Armin caught it one-handed, grinning.

“What are you working on, anyway?” Eren asked, putting his arms behind his head. He regretted the pillow toss already. “Something for class?”

“This? No. I’ve been in contact with Petra about the 3D maneuver gear thing they’re building. They’ve got working models and everything, they just need to figure out how to market it. You know, safety-wise. But they’re building a website anyway.”

“About the gear?”

“Yeah, and the facility near Los Angeles. It’s all a front for finding all the people who might be out there, but I think this one might really work. If the facility gets the right kind of media attention internationally…”

Eren considered the possibility. What would it be like, seeing all those familiar faces show up? Knowing they were all right? He tried not to let himself hope, but it was hard.

“It’s really unlikely,” Armin said suddenly, his voice quiet. Eren wondered if he’d missed something, and he said so.

Armin looked at his screen, face drawn. “The likelihood of people who don’t want to be found being found. The shifters. Levi was born in France; Hange started out in Israel. We have the whole world to cover.”

“Annie might come to us,” Eren said softly, trying not to think of the others who might come out of the woodworks. He wanted to kill them, howl in their faces, rip them apart—hold them accountable for their actions in the other life somehow. But telling Armin that wasn’t going to help anyone. “You’ll do something--a press release, or whatever people do, and you’ll say something about forgiveness or whatever, and she’ll realize we just want to know she’s safe.”

“Annie killed Petra, Eren. And the others. They know she did.”

Eren blew out a breath. _Yeah, but they were soldiers,_ he thought. There was a difference between killing soldiers and killing innocents.There was a reason, maybe.

If Armin could figure out that reason, maybe Annie could be forgiven.

“Guess what?” Eren said.

“What?”

“I feel like an ass for worrying about myself all the time.”

Armin laughed. “Don’t. It’s nice to see you worry.”

“It is?”

“Yeah. You know why?”

Eren shook his head.

“Because I know it’ll all turn out fine in the end.”

 

* * *

 

_Did you mean it?_

Eren blinked at his phone screen, his stomach doing acrobatics as he read Levi’s text for the fifth time, the screen bright in the darkness of their dorm room. It helped clear the haze of sleep from Eren’s mind. _Did you mean it?_ he’d sent at 2.09AM.

 _Mean what?_ Eren sent back at long last, after going through a long list of possibilities in his head. However he looked at it, Levi’s question was too vague, and Eren didn’t trust his 2AM brain to sort out any hidden meaning.

Levi’s reply was immediate. For a moment Eren didn’t open it, picturing Levi instead: sitting up in bed, knees pulled up, hands wrapped around his phone.

He pulled up the text.

 _That you don’t need me to be well-adjusted,_ Levi had typed.

Eren’s body felt light. _I meant it_ , he sent back.

_Could you come over?_

Eren was out of bed in a fraction of a second, pulling on fresh clothes in the dark. He hoped he could find a taxi.

 

* * *

 

“You have a key,” was the first thing Levi said when he opened the door, still dressed for the day in dark jeans and a sweater despite the late hour. Eren stood in the hallway, hands in his pockets.

“Had to make sure you still wanted me to come over,” Eren said. He’d knocked, and he was glad he had. Levi looked like a storm about to roll in, like lightning might spark if he was touched.

“I asked you to come over, didn’t I?” Levi’s voice was flat. He looked at Eren for a moment more, mouth tight, before leaving him standing at the door. Eren took it as an invitation.

“How was your week?” he asked while he hung up his coat. He knew that was too casual, but he thought Levi might kill him if he asked something more direct.

“It was shit,” Levi said from the kitchen. “Do you want something to drink?”

“After last time? I can think of other ways to embarrass myself.”

Levi’s movements stilled for a moment before resuming, and Eren couldn’t help wondering what he thought of their last interaction. Did he resent Eren for it? Did he feel embarrassed? Eren had meant the things he’d said, but he hadn’t meant to come at Levi like a jealous lover.

“You didn’t embarrass yourself,” Levi said quietly, when Eren joined him. “You don’t want anything?”

The sudden melancholy shift in the older man’s voice scared Eren, and he shook his head. “No, uh, I’m okay. Are—are you?”

Levi’s brows lowered dangerously, alerting Eren to his mistake. “Of course I am.”

Frustration bubbled in Eren’s chest, though he wasn’t sure where to direct it. He knew Levi hated being weak, knew he pushed himself to keep up the pretense of being indestructible, but surely that didn’t matter anymore, least of all when he was with Eren. Who was he being strong for?

Belatedly, Eren realized he was glaring, and Levi was glaring back. A tiny laugh escaped him, and he rubbed the back of his head. Levi’s expression lightened visibly.

“Eren, I—I don’t know what to do.”

Eren looked up, saying nothing. Levi’s hands hung at his sides. Eren watched them ball into fists and relax, over and over again.

“Why?” Eren asked finally.

Levi’s mouth was tight. “You know why.”

“I don’t. I think you’re the best. You can do anything you want, so why wouldn’t you?”

A slim eyebrow rose, unimpressed. “You think I’m the best?”

“Obviously.” Eren thought back to that other life, when serving under Levi had been a dream come true. He’d been in serious awe of the man back then, and not much had changed. He still thought Levi was the best thing since modern plumbing, but he also thought Levi was human, and fallible, and in need of taking care of.

Levi walked towards the living room, huffing. He sat down, putting his head in his hands, and Eren sat down next to him.

“You asked me to come over,” Eren said. “I was kind of hoping you’d come to a decision.”

“I did.”

Eren’s chest was tight. “And?”

Levi looked away. “I don’t like you being gone.”

Eren couldn’t help it. He grinned. It wasn’t the time for it, or the place—Levi was sitting next to him, wound tight as a wire—but it was the first explicit approval he’d gotten from Levi, at least in this life. They’d been off step since that day in the coffee shop, when Eren hadn’t remembered his name and distance had yawned out between them, but maybe—maybe—they were headed back into that time when they were growing closer together.

And this time, there was no convoy to protect.

Eren had managed to get his face under control by the time Levi turned to glare at him.

“Well?” Levi said. “Say something.”

“I don’t like being gone either.”

The glare intensified, and years ago Eren might have been intimidated by it.

Now it just made him want to kiss it away.

“Are you asking me to stay?” he asked softly.

Levi’s breath hissed out through his teeth. “I’m not asking you to marry me, brat.”

This was the worst love confession Eren had ever witnessed, but it was bad in a way that made him feel like he was lit up inside. Sure, he’d fantasized about Levi sweeping him off his feet, but this was better: Levi severely pissed off, hands balled into fists, glaring at nothing in particular as he waited for Eren to do all the legwork. It was unstudied, if nothing else. Eren couldn’t doubt the Levi’s sincerity.

He also couldn’t help a small smile.

“Levi,” he said, placing his hand between them, “I’ve been in love with you for at least half a lifetime. Can I kiss you?”

 The faintest trace of color appeared on Levi’s cheeks. “In love? Come on. For most of that time—”

Eren placed a finger over Levi’s lips. “No. I don’t want to hear about that.” He didn’t want to hear that much of that time had been spent in mourning.

Levi nodded just slightly, indicating that he understood. Eren dropped the hand and leaned in, nearly closing the distance between them.

Drew back.

“I haven’t done anything in this lifetime,” he said. “If I’m no good…”

 “For fuck’s sake, Eren, I’m not awarding points.”

Eren let out a breath of laughter. “It’s not points I’m worried about. It’s second chances.”

Levi’s hand came up under Eren’s chin, tilting his face up. A mix of desire and warmth ran through Eren as their eyes met. He wasn’t always the best at reading situations, but he thought he knew what Levi was thinking: that there would be second chances, and third chances, and fourth. They had all the time in the world.

Eren closed the distance between them.

The first kiss was soft, tentative, and it awoke a need for more that swamped Eren’s worries about being good enough or skilled enough. Levi shifted to face him more fully, his hands rising to cup Eren’s face, and even that gentle touch sent electricity racing through Eren’s body. He leaned into the contact so Levi was pressed back against the couch arm, Eren’s hand ghosting over his side, up and down, wanting to touch but not sure it would be welcome.

“Eren,” Levi whispered, a note of frustration in his voice. He grabbed the wavering hand and pressed it to his side before resuming the kiss, one leg passing over Eren’s to rest against the couch back, out of the way.

Eren didn’t have to be told twice. He let himself touch Levi through his loose sweater, mapping out the shape of him. Being allowed to touch him, being allowed this near—it was too much. It was all going to his head, fogging his brain with the impossibility of it all, but he didn’t want it to stop.

He must have slowed down, because in the next moment Levi groaned and flipped him over so his back was against the seat and Levi hovered over him, gaze intent. Eren smiled up at him.

Levi’s eyes closed tightly, and he leaned his head on Eren’s chest. “Fuck,” he said.

“Was that a suggestion?” Eren asked, his voice a little higher than he’d intended.

“ _No_. Damn it, Eren, I don’t know what to do with you.”

Eren plucked at Levi’s sweater. He was fairly sure he’d felt Levi growing hard against him while they were kissing, so he didn’t think this was about _that_. It wasn’t attraction he lacked—so what was it? Trust? Was Levi afraid to trust him?

“Tell me what’s wrong,” he said.

Levi was quiet for a long time. He sat up slightly, so Eren could see his mussed hair and tired expression.

“You’re not always going to want this,” Levi said.

Eren propped himself up on his elbows. He wanted to be a sarcastic shit about it—a doubt that stupid hardly deserved a serious answer—but he knew Levi didn’t see how ridiculous he was being. He didn’t live inside Eren’s head, couldn’t see the way Eren loved everything about him from his pale wrists to his short stature to the way he glared when he didn’t know what to say.

“I know I can’t prove it to you now,” Eren said, “But I will. Maybe I’d like to live somewhere else, or do something else, but being with someone else? I haven’t really… it doesn’t interest me.”

Levi rubbed his face. “You say that now.”

“I’ve been with other people,” Eren said, remembering dark hallways and unfamiliar beds—nothing serious, and always with the understanding that it could end tomorrow. Too often it did. “This time I don’t want to. When I realized you were somewhere out there—that it wasn’t some crazy dream—I knew I needed to find you. I don’t care about others.”

“And what if I had said no?”

Eren shrugged. “I’d live with that. I have Mikasa and Armin. Romantically, it was you or nothing. I don’t want to be with anyone else.”

Levi sat up and sighed. “You still don’t do things halfway.”

“Do you?” At his blank look, Eren added, “Do things halfway, I mean.”

Levi shook his head, making warmth blossom in Eren’s chest. A part of him had been worried that Levi was only interested because he’d stuck around, that it wasn’t about Eren but about not being alone. He supposed he’d always carry that worry, a little, just because he’d never believe Levi could have wanted him back if he’d had his pick, but he wouldn’t let it ruin everything.

Levi rubbed his face. “I can’t believe I made you come all the way over in the middle of the night. You have school tomorrow.”

“Attendance not mandatory,” Eren lied. He’d get notes from Mikasa, and he was doing well enough on exams to forget about a few participation points.

He tried not to crumble under Levi’s flat stare, but it was an exercise in futility. Eren squirmed, and a tiny smile lit Levi’s face. “You’re lying, aren’t you?”

“I’m selectively reinterpreting information,” Eren replied.

“Oh?”

“What you need to know is that I can skip and it won’t hurt me academically.”

Levi cocked an eyebrow at him.

“ _Seriously_ ,” Eren assured him. “No lies this time.”

“And what exactly do you think is going to happen tonight?”

One of Levi’s eyebrows was still higher than the other, but it wasn’t having the desired effect. The more he sounded like an imperious school teacher the more Eren started having dirty school teacher fantasies. Which brought him back to the question at hand.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I just want to stay.”

 _And take all your clothes off, and see if maybe there_ is _a scandalous tattoo, but I’ll take whatever I can get._ Anything _I can get._

Levi stood up. “Fine. For the record, I wasn’t going to make you leave either way.”

Eren looked up at him, enjoying the angle. Anticipation zinged through him. “You weren’t?”

“I’m not a saint, you know.” Levi was glaring.

“You’ve been pushing me away so much, I thought…” He didn’t quite want to vocalize it. He wasn’t sure what he’d thought, but it involved Levi continuing to push him away.

“As I said: self-control, not sainthood. I’ve wanted to do bad things to you ever since you found me.”

Eren knew he was blushing like crazy, but in all honesty, how could anyone not? He imagined Levi’s hands on him, not chaste like before but roaming all over, beneath his shirt, dipping below the waistband of his jeans…

“Wow,” Levi said, kneeling down until his head was level with the couch. “I don’t even have to be touching you.”

Eren sat up, covering his lap with a pillow. “You don’t have to be mean about it,” he said frantically, his face radiating heat.

“Mean? I thought I was paying you a compliment.”

Eren glowered, but he couldn’t keep it up for long. Levi was obviously enjoying himself, and when Levi enjoyed himself Eren found it hard to object to anything. Warmth suffused him.

“I’m going to bed,” Levi said suddenly, moving away from the couch. Eren watched him go, mouth open. He was _fairly_ sure Levi wanted him to follow, but maybe he wanted a little time? He laid back, staring up at the ceiling and enjoying the anticipation in his stomach.

“You coming, brat?” Levi called after a minute or two, and Eren rushed to his feet.

“Yes, sir!”

When he walked into the bedroom—unexplored territory for him—Levi was standing beside the bed, glaring at Eren’s use of “sir”. He’d dressed for bed in a T-shirt and pajama pants, and the sight of him made Eren’s throat close up.

Eren smiled through it, until it became possible to speak again. “Would you prefer it if I called you captain?”

Levi sighed. “You’re making me feel like I’m abusing my authority.”

“God, I wish you had. Do you know how many nights I—” Eren stopped, realizing that _I jerked off to you a lot when I was a teenager_ wasn’t exactly the kind of stuff romance was made of.

There was a gleam of amusement in Levi’s eyes. “Would you like to finish that sentence?”

“Absolutely not.”

“There’s a toothbrush in the bathroom for you,” Levi said. “You can borrow some of my clothes but I don’t have pants that’d fit you.” Then he mumbled something that sounded an awful lot like “fucking tall people”, which Eren hoped was a plan of action rather than an insult.

He retreated to the bathroom, where he spent a lot of time splashing cold water on his face and trying to convince himself he wasn’t nervous. He brushed his teeth thoroughly, much longer than he ever did in the dorms, but eventually he was ready and not ready, and he stood facing the door for a solid thirty seconds.

Levi was lying on the bed reading when Eren joined him in the bedroom, and while there was a look there was no constipation joke, and Eren wondered whether maybe Levi was nervous too.

“Do we have to go to sleep right away?” Eren asked, taking off his sweater so he was clad in a T-shirt and jeans. He folded it and laid it on a chair, knowing Levi wouldn’t like him to dump it on the floor. He unbuttoned his jeans and made the mistake of looking up. Levi was still holding the book up, but he wasn’t looking at it. His face was flushed, eyes pinned on Eren’s hips. It made Eren go bright red and forget how to take off clothes.

Levi put the book down carefully and sat up. “Don’t let me stop you.”

“I’m bad at these things,” Eren said, trying to cover his face with his hand.

“I’d hoped you’d know how to take your pants off by eighteen.”

Eren glared, and took them off, and that seemed to silence Levi well enough. There were no comments about the fact that Eren was wearing Christmas-themed boxer briefs in February, at least, and no need for Eren to explain that he’d gotten dressed in the dark. He joined Levi on the bed, nerves snaking through him. What happened now?

Levi’s hand found his, the man’s narrow eyes downcast. “We don’t have to do anything.”

Eren smiled. “I’ve waited a long time. I’m ready. But if you’re not…”

“Like you said. I’ve waited a long time.”

It gave Eren the courage to touch him, to slide his hands over to the gap between Levi’s T-shirt and pants, right over his hip. His fingertips found skin, smooth and warm. Levi closed his eyes.

Eren found his throat tightening again, and he knew this wasn’t the way sex was meant to be—laden with emotional baggage and doubts, pain amidst pleasure—but maybe they’d work their way up to the kind of joyful coming together you saw in movies. Maybe this was a part of the process, this slow growing together. He pressed his palm to Levi’s side, letting his calluses drag over the skin, and Levi made a small sound in the back of his throat.

“I can touch you, right?” Eren asked, a little breathless.

“I’d hate it if you stopped,” Levi said, his hand fisting in Eren’s shirt. Then, as an afterthought: “Brat.”

“Your insult game is weak,” Eren said as a second hand joined the first under Levi’s shirt. Moving them up revealed a six-pack that had Eren’s breath coming short, and he moved Levi so the older man was lying on his back, giving Eren access to humanity’s greatest six-pack. He wondered, vaguely, how Levi maintained it, but as his teeth grazed the skin there he didn’t really care, especially not with Levi’s hands fisting in his hair.

“Shit,” Levi said. “What are you even doing?”

Eren had no idea. He just knew he wanted to touch as much of Levi with as much of himself as he possibly could, and at the moment the T-shirt was impeding that. When he pulled it up to Levi’s armpits, Levi raised off the bed to allow it over his head, and Eren wasted no time getting it off him.

Perfection awaited.

The small noises Levi was making were getting increasingly breathless, and Eren reveled in the feeling of having Levi melt under his touch. His lips found the Levi’s neck, and when he brought his thigh up between Levi’s legs he felt Levi’s hard length against him. Levi’s fingernails dug into Eren’s T-shirt.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Levi said. “Take this off.”

Eren did, in record time. Strong fingers found his shoulder blades, glided down his spine to the waistband of his boxer briefs and teased him there. Eren’s cock twitched in response, aching to be touched. He swallowed hard, sliding down Levi’s body. If he felt like this, maybe Levi did too. He barely hesitated before setting his warm mouth over the bulge in Levi’s pants, breathing out.

The sound that shuddered out of Levi in response made him vaguely delirious.

“ _Shit_ , Eren, I thought you said you didn’t do anything.”

“This life,” he corrected, though he’d never mouthed a guy’s dick in his previous life, either.

Levi’s hands fisted in the sheets, which Eren took as tacit approval. He pulled the pajama pants down, taking underwear with it. His lips found the head of Levi’s cock, quickly folding around it. He ran his tongue down the slit, feeling a strange urge to savor, to taste—and he admitted to himself, privately, that maybe he liked doing this, that making the person he liked writhe under him was just as good as being touched. He hadn’t felt this powerful since last lifetime, and the weight of that other lifetime pressed in on him. His hand tightened on Levi’s ass convulsively, causing a ripple to go through his body.

“Fucking brat,” Levi said breathlessly as Eren’s free hand aided his mouth. “Making me think you were some kind of virginal—hah.”

Eren loved the sound of Levi’s voice, but he loved the sound of it cutting off even more.

A strong hand pulled at him, forcing him to stop sucking. Levi pulled him up to meet his mouth in a kiss, his hand moving to rest over Eren’s erection. The touch was almost painful, even through his underwear. Eren felt more sensitive than he ever did on his own.

“Tell me about those nights,” Levi whispered in his ear, flipping them so Eren was on bottom.

Oh god, dirty talk. He didn’t know if he could do dirty talk. “Fuck, Levi, I can’t—”

“Did you think of me?”

Eren let out a shuddering breath as Levi’s hand moved past the slit in his boxers to touch him. “All the time,” he said. His muscles tensed under Levi’s touch, and his fingers dug into the older man’s bicep. “I don’t want you to think I didn’t respect you, but—”

Levi rubbed his taint, sending a lance of pleasure up Eren’s spine. The noise he made was pathetic, like a wild animal keening, but when he met Levi’s eyes he couldn’t regret it. Those grey eyes were bright, a predatory smile twisting his lips. Eren wasn’t scared for his life, but he was a little scared for his sanity.

“So you respect me, huh?”

“Oh, god, so much.” He closed his eyes tightly, too focused on what Levi’s hand was doing to focus on his words. “So much.”

Levi’s grip slackened, his forehead coming to rest on Eren’s chest. When Eren opened his eyes, he saw Levi’s shoulders were shaking, and he had a short moment of panic as he thought he’d made Levi cry. Then his face lifted, and Eren saw he was laughing.

“I love you, brat,” Levi said, still shaking. A moment later his eyes widened, and Eren got the impression he hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

He drew Levi into a kiss before doubt could creep in. He wouldn’t let Levi take those words back, not ever. His hands talked for him: caressing, sliding, gripping hard. Tense muscles in Levi’s back unclenched somewhat, and Eren rolled them again.

“I want to finish you off with my mouth,” Eren said. “Will you let me this time, you power-hungry freak?”

“I can’t help it,” Levi said as Eren descended once more. “You’re so damn—ah. Ah.”

Eren’s lips and fingers stilled Levi’s tongue. He didn’t know how to do this beyond a basic understanding of the act, but he could imagine what felt good. Eren used Levi’s gasps and moans as a guideline, switching between using the flat of his tongue and sucking. His mouth got tired, but then Levi was contorting beneath him, gasping, and Eren brought him over the edge a moment later. He felt Levi go boneless beneath him in the aftermath, and he swallowed for lack of something to spit into. He hoped Levi would still be willing to kiss him.

He found that Levi was, in fact, willing to kiss him.

Not just on the mouth.

Eren writhed as Levi moved down his body, his mouth closing over a nipple, his hands everywhere. His boxer briefs were far too tight, but that didn’t stop him from thrusting up against Levi, seeking friction. He groaned with relief when Levi slid his underwear off, then whimpered as Levi’s mouth settled over his erection.

For a blissful minute Eren reveled in the feeling of Levi’s mouth on him, hot and insistent, but the memory of his whispers sent longing straight through him, until even bliss left him unsatisfied.

“Could you—could you talk to me, again?”

 Levi’s hand took the place of his mouth. He moved back up Eren’s body, an honest-to-god smirk on his face. “Oh? Eren Jaeger likes dirty talk?”

“Fuck you,” Eren said.

“Maybe in a little bit. I’ll let you. Maybe I’ll make you work for it.”

Eren moaned.

“You like that idea? It goes both ways, you know. You’ll let me, won’t you? One of these days, I’m going to pound into you so hard you forget your name.”

Another keening sound erupted from Eren’s throat. He was close, so close. Levi’s hand was tight on him, fingers strong. His breath ghosted over Eren’s neck.

“But I’ll make sure you remember mine,” Levi whispered, and it sent Eren over the edge. Cum splattered his stomach, and when the red receded from his eyelids he found it was possible to open his eyes. The satisfied look on Levi’s face was almost too much to bear, he felt so drained.

“I learned so much about you, Eren,” Levi said.

Eren stared up at the ceiling, breathing hard. “It goes both ways.”

Levi wiped up the mess with a T-shirt—Eren wasn’t sure whose—and threw the soiled shirt into a hamper in the corner of the room. Levi tossed him clean boxers, too, which he wasted no time putting on.

He thought Levi would join him then, but instead he went to the bathroom, and Eren worried that he would fall asleep before he could find out if Levi was a cuddler.

His eyelids were getting heavy by the time Levi joined him in the bed. The bed dipped, and Eren reached out sleepily.

“Hey, brat,” Levi said, and Eren waited for a “get off me”—but it was just that: a greeting. Levi faced the other way, and Eren curled himself around him, laying his bottom arm under the pillow and the other around Levi. He kissed Levi’s shoulder, and Levi sighed.

“Thank you,” he said.

 _For what?_   Eren thought, too sleepy to vocalize it. For spooning him? For sex? For coming over? But maybe it was a mix of all three, or something completely different, and Eren spent no time worrying about it before drifting off to sleep.


	8. Recollection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As will become obvious this chapter, I am completely ignoring the government arc. So this is an AU within an AU, even though I hoped to keep the past life canon-compliant-ish. But I just can't guess what's going to happen, so I opted to keep things simple.

Eren woke up warm and comfortable and aware of his surroundings. He felt Levi’s back pressed up against his, and from the even breathing coming from the other side of the bed he knew Levi was still sleeping.

Eren turned, letting his forehead rest against the back of Levi’s neck, where he could feel the soft bristles of Levi’s undercut. He didn’t want to move too much, and that in itself was a miracle; there was always something burning inside of Eren that forced him to move forward, to make progress. That fire was quiet now, transformed. It was a blanket of warmth around him.

He didn’t think it would last, but he could enjoy it for the moment.

When Levi’s breathing went quiet for a long moment, Eren knew he was awake, but there were no other signs. It scared Eren a little; he liked to roll around and get comfortable, and the fact that Levi’s first instinct was to stop breathing and freeze up said too much about his life thus far.

It made Eren want to wrap his arm around him, but he was afraid it would take him by surprise. He wanted Levi’s awakening to be pleasant, and so he stayed completely still until Levi’s breathing resumed and he rolled onto his back, looking up at Eren. Eren propped himself up on his elbow.

“You’re still here,” Levi said.

“You expected me to leave?”

Levi shook his head. His mouth was tight, his expression as far from post-coital bliss as Eren had ever seen it. A chasm of doubt opened up in Eren’s chest.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Eren glared. “Obviously something.”

Levi sat up. He ran a hand through his hair—whisper-soft, silky hair Eren had been allowed to touch just yesterday—and sighed. “I’m not a morning person.”

“Did I do something wrong? Did I snore?”

Levi glared. “You’re doing something wrong now.”

 _What is it?_ Eren wanted to ask, but he had a feeling it would only make Levi angrier. Something was wrong. That was bad, but he’d figure it out, because yesterday there had been the promise of _later_ and Eren wasn’t giving that up.

Later wasn’t a promise he’d ever had in that other life.

They were stuck in awkward silence when Eren’s phone started going in the next room. He sent an apologetic look at Levi and ran to answer it, wondering if he should have ignored it.

_But what good would that do?_

Eren frowned at the screen when he saw who was calling: Hange. It was almost noon.

“Hello?” he answered.

“Eren? Hey!”

“What’s up?”

“This is going to be a weird request,” they said. “But could you check up on Mikasa? We had a session yesterday, and it was really productive, but… Eren, I think she might need you to be there. I’m sorry if this interferes with anything.”

Eren wondered how much Hange knew about his current situation, but he reassured them nonetheless. He’d check up on Mikasa.

Hange wouldn’t ask him to if it wasn’t necessary.

Levi was dressed by the time Eren joined him, his mouth still pressed in a tight line. His eyes asked a silent question.

“It was Hange,” Eren said. “Worried about Mikasa. I need to—do you mind?”

Levi shook his head.

 

* * *

 

 

He watched Eren go, that strange lump still caught in his throat. Eren didn’t kiss him goodbye—didn’t even touch him—but he noticed the way the Eren’s fingers twitched towards him, the insecurity in his face.

Levi wasn’t sure what it meant, for either of them.

 

* * *

 

 

Eren knocked on the door of Mikasa’s room, wondering if she was in. By all rights they should both be in anatomy class, but maybe she’d skipped too if she wasn’t feeling well. An apology rose on Eren’s lips when her roommate opened the door.

“Ah, good,” the girl said before he could say anything. “I’ll get my stuff and head out. You talk to her, okay?”

Dread crawled into Eren’s body.

The girl left, and Eren entered the room. It was less well furnished than Eren and Armin’s room—neither of the girls had lofted their beds to make room for desks, and there was no TV—but it was decorated on both sides with people in yoga poses in front of sunsets, alongside posters of mountains and jungles. He knew Mikasa had nothing to do with the decorations save for a single picture of her, Eren and Armin pinned unassumingly to the corner of the corkboard next to her desk, but that in itself said something about her. It made his heart squeeze just a little.

Mikasa was lying in bed, burrowed under her striped comforter, facing the wall. Eren stood behind her and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Mikasa? Hey.”

She huddled further into the blankets.

“What’s wrong?”

She said nothing. Eren took off his shoes and climbed onto the high bed awkwardly, sliding beneath the blankets. He closed the distance between them and put one arm over her without hesitation. If she didn’t want to be touched he’d get an elbow to the gut, but he knew her pretty well.

He thought this might be what she needed.

Sure enough, she started to move: small, jerky motions. Her head remained tucked to her chest, her hands fisted into the blankets, but her body was shocking. Tiny sobs escaped her.

“Mikasa,” Eren said. “I’m here.” Then, after a moment: “I love you.”

The sobs increased in magnitude. “Eren,” she kept saying under her breath, between gasps of breath. “Eren.”

Eventually the crying stopped, and Eren reached for the box of tissues on the windowsill. Mikasa took them gladly, wiping her face. Her expression was smooth by the time she sat up, but her eyes were puffy.

“What happened?” Eren asked softly. “Hange said you had a session. Did it go badly?”

Mikasa blew out a breath. “No.”

“I thought you didn’t want to be hypnotized.”

“I didn’t. Someone found me, from that life, you know? On Facebook. And I wanted to remember him better.”

“Who?”

Mikasa shook her head. “One of the younger trainees. Not our year. He’s older than us now.”

Eren knew what she meant: _he died before us_.

“I’m one of the people he remembers, and I… don’t really remember him, much.”

Hence the hypnosis session. That made sense, but why had it left her paralyzed? Had she caused his death somehow? Eren knew that guilt better than most, so he was gentle when he asked her what happened.

“I made an appointment with Hange after he contacted me,” Mikasa said. “And it was fine. It was like you said, at first—but the memories I went to weren’t the ones I wanted. They were my end-of-life memories. The days before I died.”

Eren’s eyes widened. “How do you know?”

She looked out the window. “The contents.”

“Which were?”

“A huge battle. The final push. Armin dying. Others dying. And you.”

Eren’s breath was held.

Her eyes filled again, and her hands gripped her knees tightly. She was shaking. “We won, Eren. We got past the ape titan. It was their last stand, and we won.”

_So why are you crying?_

“We won, and a scout jumped up on you. You were still alive, you were in your titan form, and I remember looking up at you.”

She paused. There was heartbreak in her face, her posture, her eyes.

“They killed you, Eren. The government. We were safe. We _survived_. And the moment we had our victory, they killed you. It was that scout’s purpose all along, to make sure you died in the last battle.”

Eren let out a shuddery breath. It was hard not to feel Mikasa’s sense of loss, her betrayal, but he’d accepted his death. Sure, it sucked to find out that he’d been killed by the people he’d fought for, but they’d _won_. If Mikasa was right, then he’d done what he’d set out to do: kill all the titans.

It was all he’d ever wanted. This life wasn’t some punishment for failing; it was a reward.

“I’m here,” he said, reaching for her hand. “I’m still alive, Mikasa. You were right. This is our second chance at life.”

Her hand was limp in his grip, so he asked her more: what happened after, what she’d seen. What he wanted to ask was _did we really kill all the titans?_ but he knew it would tear her apart. It was clear she didn’t care, that she’d forgotten triumph in the face of loss. Maybe later it would sink in for her, the way it was sinking in for Eren now.

With red-rimmed eyes Mikasa told him her story—her final stand. How she’d seen a dark figure jump up onto Eren’s shoulders. How she’d realized what was about to happen a moment before it did: the figure’s blades emerging, cutting into Eren. How he’d gone down without a fight and died cocooned within his titan flesh. Her shoulders shook as she told the story, but she persisted: how she’d left the group, moved into the inner city. She’d snuck around corners and found out who was responsible.

Killed the king’s advisors. Killed the king.

Was killed herself.

That part reached Eren, all right. He held his sister tightly, his heart aching for her. He knew how much he meant to her—more than he deserved to mean to anyone, maybe—but he hadn’t realized how little regard she had for herself.

“I didn’t want you to die for me,” he whispered into her hair. “You could have lived. You could have seen the ocean.”

“I couldn’t have,” she said, and he held her tighter.

 

* * *

 

 

 It was funny how much could change without anything changing at all. He, Armin and Mikasa were still going to school together, were still tracking everyone down—but everything was different.

They knew they’d succeeded in their mission to kill the titans.

They knew they’d been betrayed by the people they fought for.

And Mikasa could only remember the latter.

Eren and Armin stayed with her that day, squishing her between them, blankets drawn up around the three of them. They felt as if they might be able to mend the part of her that had broken after she regained her memories; with enough body heat on either side of her the loose and rattling bolts that had held her together would melt in place and hold her together once more. They could only hope.

On a bathroom break Eren sent a message to Levi explaining the situation, and Levi sent back that he was with Hange and hearing the news from them. Eren wanted to call up and ask how he was feeling, but the timing was awful. He wanted a we-had-sex-and-now-our-relationship-is-different talk but they also needed to have an apparently-we-killed-all-titans talk and having both of those at the same time would be hard. He was fairly sure the latter took priority, but he didn’t want to make any assumptions.

It wasn’t until late in the evening that Mikasa started to regain color in her face. She’d napped for a little while, and eaten, and listened to an email from Petra telling her thank you for the happy news. Armin had read it out loud to them, and Petra’s stunned gratefulness had been clear in her word choice.

But it seemed that prying into Eren’s private life was the thing that truly restored his sister’s energy.

“By the way,” Armin had said, when they were trying to decide what to do next. “What happened to you last night, Eren?”

Eren felt his face tingle. “Uh.”

He found his friends looking at him curiously.

“Now’s not really the time, is it?”

“Is it good news?” Mikasa asked. Her voice was soft, hopeful.

She wanted good news. Right now, he’d give her anything.

“I think so,” he said. “I’m not one-hundred percent sure. There was no… debriefing.” Eren dug the heels of his hands into his cheeks, as if that could keep the blush at bay. “We slept together. It was really good. Or—I thought it was. But then this morning he was all weird.”

“What kind of weird?” Armin asked.

“Just really reserved.”

“You’re right,” Mikasa said, totally deadpan. “That _is_ weird. Levi’s normally so extraverted.”

Eren glared, though he was secretly happy that she was feeling good enough to tease him.

“Maybe he was overwhelmed,” Armin offered. “That’s a big change, right? And such a long time coming.”

“ _Such_ a long time,” Eren said, in his best long-suffering voice.

Mikasa laughed.

“Thirsty.”

“What was that?” Eren asked, looking from Armin to Mikasa and back. It was a whisper, and he wasn’t sure who it had come from.

“That’s what people here call it,” Mikasa said. “Thirsty. You were thirsty.”

She looked brighter by the minute, while Eren was increasingly mortified.

“I wasn’t— _thirsty_. Oh god, that is such a bad word.”

“You totally were thirsty,” Mikasa said. Her matter-of-fact voice was the worst.

“I wasn’t.”

Armin smiled. “Come on, Eren. Admit it.”

“Admit it,” Mikasa repeated.

“Will it cheer you up?” Eren asked. _Thirsty_. It was such a ridiculous word to use for it.

“Hugely,” she said.

He sighed heavily.  “Fine. I admit it. I was _totally thirsty_.”

“Much better,” Mikasa said, and she sounded like she meant it.

 

* * *

 

 

The next day, Eren and Mikasa attended classes as usual. Halfway through the day they got a group message from Erwin saying he was having a small get-together at his house in honor of “the week’s revelations”, and Mikasa said she was feeling well enough to attend.

Eren wasn’t sure if he believed it, but she did look better than she had yesterday, and maybe a party would help him feel like the fight was really over. He’d thought about it all last night: whether he believed it, whether it could be true.

If Erwin believed it from hearing it from Hange, it had to be true, right? Eren couldn’t imagine Erwin being deceived by anything—but then again, Erwin had moved on from that life already. Maybe he wasn’t above wishful thinking.

Really Eren ought to ask Mikasa if _she_ was sure, but it was too cruel. He knew she was still hurting.

On the subway over to Erwin’s house, Eren saw her playing with something, turning it over and over in her hands. “What’s that?”

“Huh?” She stopped flipping it, holding it still. It was a plush toy, and when Mikasa held it up Eren recognized it as a tiny lion, the mane a darker gold than the fur. “For the baby,” she explained.

Eren bit back a smile. Last time they went to Erwin’s house, it had been to meet his new daughter—a tiny, pink bundle with a scrunched-up face. When they’d left, Mikasa had complained that all the baby’s cuddly toys were prey animals—bunnies and sheep and zebras.

Not that this lion looked very fierce, but the intent was there.

They walked up to the front door together, and when they knocked someone yelled for them to come in. Predictably, a baby was crying.

A cloud of pizza-scented air welcomed them into the house, drawing them into the living room where Hange, Erwin and Levi stood in varying modes of discomfort, Erwin holding a wrapped bundle in his arms. Levi’s pale eyes found Eren when he walked in.

“Marie’s asleep,” he explained. “She said six adults could handle one baby.”

“She’s testing me,” Erwin said, looking fond. Then his brows furrowed. “But Rose’s diaper isn’t wet, and she won’t take the bottle. What else is there?”

“Maybe—” Eren started, before reconsidering. He’d seen his mom with babies plenty of times when he went to visit her at work, but that didn’t mean he knew anything. “Hold her—uh—up to your shoulder?” He mimicked the posture with an imaginary baby in his arms.

Blue eyes glinted. “A volunteer!” Erwin said, a moment before handing the crying baby to Eren. Eren blinked rapidly, taking Rose from him by instinct. He held the baby in the way he’d described, even though it brought her crying mouth close to his ear.

It was then that Eren noticed the bags under the commander’s eyes and the way he looked distinctly less well put-together than he had the last few times Eren had seen him. He was fairly sure he’d been played.

Oh well. The baby seemed to be quieting in Eren’s firm grip, with Mikasa holding up the lion toy for its eyes to track.

“All you had to do was ask,” Eren grumbled, causing Erwin to grin sheepishly.

“If she falls asleep, we can put her in the crib,” was all he said.

They settled in to eat, and with Eren’s hands full Mikasa took it upon herself to feed him slices of pizza. There was a light in her eyes that told him she was enjoying it, and at one point Eren thought she threw a significant glance at Levi, as if to ask, _shouldn’t you be doing this?_ Eren didn’t look up to see Levi’s response.

Hange did most of the talking, describing the conflict of their last life. They’d pieced together a rough sketch of events based on everyone’s recollections, relying most heavily on Armin’s and Mikasa’s. Eren’s memories were more scattered, probably due to time spent in titan form. It was clear the ape titan had been their main enemy in the last decade of war against the titans, but the why’s and how’s were still fuzzy.

Eren wondered if they’d ever find someone who’d outlived them; it would be such a big help.

When Hange was done with their explanation—which left out the part about Eren’s death being planned—there was a silence. Levi was the first to interrupt it.

“You’re sure?” he asked Mikasa. “You’re sure that was the last push? We were free of the titans?”

“Not all titans,” Mikasa said. “But there was a—solution. I don’t remember what it was, but the ape titan was defending it. I think it had something to do with our basement, even though the last fight took place outside of the walls. Maybe near the shifter village.”

“So basically, you’re not sure.” Levi’s eyes were narrowed.

She glared back. “They wouldn’t have—” her words stopped, her fists clenched. She tried again. “They wouldn’t have killed Eren if we hadn’t won.”

Levi looked up at that. “What?” he asked, his voice very low.

Hange cleared their throat. “Mikasa?”

“A government agent killed Eren,” Mikasa said, looking Levi square in the face. “Just as we realized we’d won.”

Levi looked at Eren for confirmation, his mouth in a tight line. Eren shrugged the shoulder that wasn’t being drooled on.

“I don’t remember,” he said. “I was in titan form, so…”

“Excuse me,” Levi said, standing up. He walked to the entryway and out the front door without another word, leaving only a blast of cold air in his wake. Eren looked around at the others, who all seemed to be looking at him.

Mikasa took Rose from him wordlessly.

Every face said the same thing: _go after him._

“Be right back,” Eren said before racing out the door, grabbing his coat as he went.


	9. Faces of the past

He found Levi walking down the sidewalk, his shoulders high, his breath misting in the air behind him. Eren called after him, accelerating into a run. It was far too cold to be out without a coat, and Levi didn’t look like he’d just stepped out—he looked like he was escaping.

Eren caught up, his breaths steaming in the air. He grabbed Levi’s arm, halting him.

“Hey,” he said, hoping he sounded calming. “It’s okay.”

Levi threw off his hand and continued walking, a murderous glare on his face.

Eren followed, his eyes drawn to the tight furrow between Levi’s brows, the way his fists were clenched tight. “Talk to me, Levi.”

God, he wanted to hold him.

“There’s nothing to say.”

Eren didn’t think there was anything less true in the world. He had about a million things he wanted to say, the most urgent being _I don’t know what specific thing is making you angry right now_ _and I want you to tell me so I can help_ , but he wasn’t the one who needed to be talking right now.

Levi’s brisk pace took them past nice suburban houses, past lit living rooms filled with families and TVs playing to empty couches. He kept walking until they got to a particularly desolate street corner, where the concrete was cracked and a construction project lay unfinished, gravel laying in mounds around an empty lot. Yellowish light from a nearby street light shone down on him, and his steps faltered.

“I want to kill them,” Levi said, almost to himself. He turned, paced, turned again. “Why can’t I kill them?”

There was tension in every line of his body, wound up tight as a wire. A part of Eren wanted to see him in action like this, when the anger poured off him in waves. There were times when Levi wore his anger like a cloak, when he used it to spur others into action—but this time he _was_ his anger.

“The ones responsible for killing me?” Eren asked, voice quiet. “Mikasa already did. It’s—it was taken care of, already.”

Levi stopped pacing, looked up at him. “She killed them?”

“Yeah. That’s how she died, going after those guys. Not titans at all.”

Levi’s jaw clenched. “That’s something, I guess.”

“What are you so upset about?”

“That, for one.”

Eren looked around, unsure what Levi meant. “That what?”

“That you’re _not_ upset. That you’re not—you just don’t care. You don’t care about yourself at all.”

“Of course I care!” Eren said. “But that stuff—what happened to us in that life—it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Says the guy who had a breakdown about not saving me.”

Eren was about to argue—to say that that was different—but the feelings that swelled up proved Levi’s point for him. Eren _didn’t_ care. He knew he’d wanted to live, but living wasn’t his top priority. Killing the titans, saving his friends—those were more important. The thought of being helpless was infinitely more terrifying than the thought of dying.

“You’d give up anything for anyone,” Levi said, his tone accusatory.

Eren frowned. “That’s not true.”

Levi cocked an eyebrow.

“It’s not,” Eren repeated. “For anyone? No. For the people I care about? Yeah, I’d give up anything. But why is that a bad thing?”

Eren saw Levi’s lips pull back in disgust a moment before he faced away, and that disgust—the anger—was like a punch to his gut.

 _He said he loved you_ , Eren reminded himself.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Levi said, voice curiously empty. “I was wrong. It’s better if we’re not together.”

Eren felt sick. “No.”

Levi’s shoulders rose, but he didn’t say anything.

Everything would be resolved if Eren could just touch him, but every line of Levi’s posture warned him off. He tried to remember being in bed with him, hearing Levi’s voice in his ear. Slate grey eyes watching him, seeming lit from within, the pupils blown wide. That version of Levi was as distant from this one as the sun.

“I’m not going to accept that,” Eren said. “Not unless you can give me a reason.”

Levi let out a cold laugh, turning to face him again. “One reason? Okay. One: you’re scared of me.”

“That’s not true,” Eren said. He was becoming a broken record.

“Yeah? You’re scared to touch me. You think I haven’t noticed?”

Eren’s fists clenched. _Scared?_ He wanted to give Levi the space he needed. He _wanted_ to touch him all the time. How could he interpret that as fear?

“I’m trying to be considerate,” Eren said. “I don’t want to touch you when you don’t want to be touched. That’s normal. That’s—that’s just respecting boundaries.”

Levi looked disbelieving. “What do you think my boundaries are?”

“Just tell me what I did wrong,” Eren said. “It’s the touching? That’s it? Because I can prove you wrong pretty easily there.”

A flush passed over Levi’s face, right before a shiver crept up his spine. Eren took his coat off in less than a second, wrapping it around Levi’s shoulders in no time flat. The coat was huge on him, and for a moment Levi looked stunned.

“I wasn’t—” he started, but then he drew the coat around him, eyes closing slightly at the warmth. “Thanks.”

Eren nodded, waiting.

“You’re—really selfless. In a lot of ways.”

Again, Eren wondered how this was unforgivable.

“I don’t want you to be careful with me,” Levi said.

“Huh?”

Levi glared at the ground. “You treat me like I’m breakable, these days. Maybe that’s my fault for the way I acted early on, but—I don’t want a caretaker, Eren. I like you the way you are when you’re not scared.”

Eren groaned. “Why do you keep saying I’m scared? I’m not.”

“Then stop being careful.”

 _Being careful_ , Eren thought. He could think of a few instances where he’d held back. Were they the problem, along with not caring enough about himself? If so, he had to make sure not to make that mistake again—but first he had to know it was a mistake. He swallowed nervously.

“Yesterday morning,” he said. “Did you want me to hold you?”

Levi looked horrified at the question, and he covered his blush with his hand. “Don’t ask embarrassing shit like that. Jesus, Eren—I’d rather have you ask what consistency my last shit was.”

Eren was pretty sure that was a yes, considering. He wished now that he had just pulled Levi close yesterday the way he’d wanted to, that he hadn’t kept his distance over an imaginary preference—but it was hard to imagine Levi wanting to be held. It was easier to imagine him tolerating the contact for the sake of his other needs, and Eren didn’t want to push his luck.

But that was a form of being careful, wasn’t it? And Levi had told him to stop.

He couldn’t disobey a direct order.

Eren took a step forward, placing his cold fingers under Levi’s chin to tip his head back. Levi’s gaze wasn’t inviting, exactly—it was cool, almost detached—but for once Eren allowed himself to believe that maybe Levi didn’t know how to show what he was feeling. Maybe he’d spent so long cultivating a fuck-off aura that he no longer knew how to turn it off.

Eren wanted to see heat return to that cold gaze.

His head lowered, eyes closing a second before his mouth met Levi’s. Levi’s lips were cold, his nose colder, and for a while everything was perfectly still—a frozen moment punctuated by rustling leaves and cars traveling distant highways. Then Levi rose up onto his toes, meeting Eren’s mouth more firmly.

The chill in the air fell away.

Sensations flooded Eren: the scrape of teeth against his lip, Levi’s fists bunched in his shirt, the softness of Levi’s hair under his own questing hands. Levi’s mouth was forceful, and the way he aligned their hips wasn’t chaste or gentle. It left no room for doubts, and Eren remembered the angry energy that had poured from Levi earlier.

It seemed he’d found an outlet.

Eren met fire with fire, hands clenching, his teeth catching Levi’s bottom lip, but he found himself stunned when Levi’s hand drifted down between them, descending to cup him through his jeans. His nerves stuttered with pleasure, and he jerked his mouth away.

“Levi,” he whispered, extremely conscious of the houses nearby. Curtains were drawn, but the light from the streetlights revealed them, and a car could drive by at any time.

“I want to fuck you senseless,” Levi said, voice rough, but the calculating look on his face told Eren this wasn’t just about sex. It was about earlier.

“I want you to fuck me senseless,” Eren said, cagey. “But you don’t see me risking public indecency for it.”

Not that he’d moved Levi’s hand. He wanted the hand there—but not _here_.

“I could make you pretty indecent,” Levi whispered, punctuating his words with a hard downward stroke. The friction sent pleasure fizzing through Eren.

 _Fuck_.

It was ridiculous, Levi’s theory that he didn’t care about himself, that he’d do anything, and Levi took revenge in the weirdest ways. So what if Eren wasn’t fucked up about being betrayed in his past life? Shouldn’t Levi be happy for him?

Eren slid his hand between them, catching Levi’s wrist and drawing his hand up to his chest, bearing Levi’s glare admirably.

“Let me go home with you tonight,” Eren said.

“You say that like I need to be convinced.”

“Hm,” Eren said, twisting a lock of Levi’s hair around his index finger, then letting it fall back into place. “Maybe not about _that_. But other things.”

“If you say you’re going to prove your love to me I’ll kick your teeth in.”

Eren covered his smile with his hand. He knew Levi could make good on that threat, but he didn’t look very threatening wrapped in Eren’s coat, his cheeks flushed with cold. Levi’s short stature was one of Eren’s favorite things about him, and Eren would never get tired of the fact that a man so powerful could fit comfortably under his chin.

He’d also never tell Levi that.

“We should get back to the others,” he said instead. “They’re probably worried about you.”

Levi scoffed. “About you, you mean. I’m sure Erwin misses his babysitter already.”

“You jealous? Want me to burp you?”

It surprised a laugh out of Levi, and just the sound of that made Eren’s whole body warm up. He interlaced his fingers with Levi’s, pulling Levi along while he was still off-guard, and he followed without a struggle.

His hand was tight around Eren’s as they walked.

 

* * *

 

 

When Levi and Eren returned to the house, they found their friends all huddled around a laptop screen, peering at someone’s Facebook pictures while Rose was nowhere to be seen—sleeping somewhere, probably. No one mentioned Levi’s abrupt departure, or the new closeness between him and Eren. Instead, Hange beckoned them closer.

“This is the guy who contacted Mikasa,” they said. “Remember anything about him?”

They examined the pictures—a man in his twenties, with dark hair and a nice smile that came out whenever he posed. The candids were different, though: he always seemed to be looking away, and the smile was curiously absent. He looked… haunted.

He looked the way Eren would have, if Mikasa hadn’t found him when he was young.

Eren shook his head. “He looks familiar, but—I don’t remember any specifics.”

It felt wrong to say, but the fact remained that not everyone left an impression. They contributed, but they weren’t always remembered. No wonder Mikasa had felt guilty enough to let herself get hypnotized.

“He was allergic,” Levi said. “To—something. A spice?” Then, to Mikasa: “He followed you around a lot. I think he had a crush.”

Mikasa looked miserable at the thought.

“How do you remember so much?” Eren asked wonderingly.

Levi shrugged, but Erwin answered for him.

“Levi made it a point to know about everyone who joined the survey corps, and he’s had more sessions with Hange than anyone.”

Eren didn’t know whether to be impressed or saddened by that, but Hange didn’t give him much time for either. They pulled the laptop towards them, taking over.

“That aside, now I can show you the person _I_ found.”

“Found?” Erwin asked. “You said he contacted you.”

“Still my find, right?” they mumbled, opening a new browser.

“It’s not a contest,” Levi said.

“You only say that because you’re in the lead. Ah—here we are. He says his name in his past life was Marco. He remembers you three, he said. Here.”

Hange shifted the screen to face them, and Eren inhaled sharply. A friendly-looking, freckled man in his thirties smiled a bland smile, and words to the side of it marked him out to be a history professor at Cambridge.

Were people that young _ever_ professors? Let alone at foreign universities even Eren knew the name of?

“I remember him,” Mikasa said. “He was really nice.”

“I don’t,” Levi said, frowning.

“He died at Trost, before any of us joined the survey corps,” Eren said. He hadn’t always known what the town of the second wall breach was called, but with all their memories combined they’d figured out some place names; Trost was one. “Or… after Trost?”

“The second battle at Trost,” Armin said. “Annie stole his gear.”

Eren looked at his friend, curious at the higher pitch of his voice, and saw Armin’s eyes were reflective due to a sheen of tears. He patted Armin’s shoulder awkwardly.

“Marco was a really good guy,” Armin said, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “We used to spend a lot of time together. I wonder why he contacted you and not us…?”

“Through my blog,” Hange said. “I don’t think he knew it was me at first. He said he realized when he saw the picture of us all.”

Eren knew the picture, from their first gathering: him, Mikasa and Armin in front, and the other three behind them on the couch. They’d used a timer to take it, and they all laughed when they saw the picture because their expressions varied by hair color: tempered smiles for the blondes, wide grins for the brunettes—and two different but unsmiling faces from the black-haired section. Hange had said they’d put it up on their hypnosis-and-repressed-memories blog in case someone from their old life ever went there, and that had proved useful in Marco’s case.

It was strange, how some of their search attempts paid off and others didn’t—unpredictable. They could all spend their lives looking and never find anything if it wasn’t for luck and circumstance. Eren knew how lucky he was to have been born in the same state as Mikasa.

“I wonder if we’ll ever find non-fighters who remember the titans,” Hange said, sighing. “Marco didn’t mention fighting them, so I hoped he’d be the first bystander to remember that life, but I guess not. Everyone who remembers that world has faced the titans. I wonder if that’s the clue?”

Eren thought of his mother, who’d been eaten alive but remembered nothing this time around. It couldn’t be the horror that triggered the memories, or she’d remember; it had to be something else. The decision to fight, maybe—but that didn’t make any sense when it came down to it, and Eren thought again about how this life could be interpreted as a reward for choosing hell in that other one.

It was such a strange thought, and Eren didn’t like it; he didn’t trust higher powers. He wanted there to be a natural order to things, one he could trust and predict.

“Did he mention others?” Armin asked. “Marco was good friends with a few others.”

“Yeah!” Eren said, remembering one in particular: one who’d survived the first battles. “Horseface.”

Armin snorted. “I _told_ you I remembered his name. Jean. He’s not going to like it if you call him Horseface when you see him next.”

Eren imagined the scene, and a grin split his face. No—Armin was right. So-called Jean wouldn’t like it. Eren could just imagine the other guy’s eyebrows drawing together at the old nickname, his mouth twisting in annoyance. Eren couldn’t wait.

“I’m counting on it,” he said, still grinning.

He hoped the maneuver gear theme park would be done soon. He had a feeling Horseface would show up for that.

Eren would, in his position—whatever that position was.


	10. Real this time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Embarrassing firsts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary of past chapters as I am sure 90% of you have forgotten this fic exists since I took so long to update (sorry, sorry, sorry!):
> 
> Eren, Armin & Mikasa are attending university in NYC and have found Hange, Levi & Erwin there. The first special ops team is making a 3DMG themeparkish thing on the west coast to attract fellow reincarnees. Hange does hypnosis on people to help them remember more and it's led to a decent amount of new information. Last chapter Eren & Levi got into a fight because Eren found out he'd been assassinated by a government agent in their past life and didn't really care. They more or less made up. Marco is a professor in England and contacted Hange after seeing a picture of the Shiganshina Trio on her website.
> 
> *deep breath*
> 
> I think we're about caught up now. 
> 
> And now for my second apology: this chapter is virtually all sex, which is a bit of an odd transition back into this fic after the long hiatus. I hope you can enjoy nonetheless!

Silence folded around Eren and Levi as soon as they were away from the group, sitting side-by-side in a quiet taxi taking them back to Levi’s apartment. A screen in the divider showed advertisements for Broadway plays and things to do around the city, but it wasn’t the flickering lights of the ads holding Eren’s attention. Levi had been quiet the rest of the meeting, not talking much about Marco and the possibility of others, and Eren worried that Levi had something else on his mind.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked, watching Levi’s profile.

Levi sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “Depressing shit.”

“Anything I can help with?”

Levi tossed him a wan smile. “Unless you know the secrets of the universe, probably not.”

“Ah. The universe.” Eren waited for a bit before asking, “So… the memory stuff again?”

“Mm.”

At least he wasn’t still angry at Eren—that was always a plus.

“You’re not off the hook yet, either,” Levi said, as if he’d read Eren’s thoughts.

“What?!”

Levi leaned back, a small smile on his lips as he looked at the ceiling, his arms crossed. “Kidding.”

They segued back into silence, looking out the windows on either side. Once upon a time the city had seemed too big, too full of people, but when Eren looked out at it now he felt like he’d seen all there was to see. Was there any reason to stay here? They could be helping Petra and the rest with their work on the west coast. His parents might be a little confused if he dropped out of college now, but weren’t they used to that by now?

“What are you thinking about?” Levi asked, and Eren looked up, surprised. Levi wasn’t the type to ask him about his private thoughts—or rather, he hadn’t been.

“Dropping out,” Eren answered without much thought.

Levi’s face betrayed nothing. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Eren said, gathering confidence. This could be fun. “I thought I’d just drop out and be your housewife, you know?”

“Okay.”

Eren spluttered. “What?”

“First rule of fucking with people: be better at it than they are.” Levi looked out at the familiar neighborhood; they were drawing up to the apartment complex. “Here we are, sweetheart. Deary. Honey. Have a preference?”

Eren made a face and stepped out of the taxi when it stopped, glad Levi couldn’t see the way even joke pet names made him a little breathless. He rounded the car as Levi paid and they stepped into the building together, Eren realizing—a little ruefully—that it was their first time entering it side-by-side. Levi’s sidelong glance told Eren he’d had the same thought.

They passed through the marble lobby and into a waiting elevator. Eren observed Levi in the mirror as the metal box rose, noting the tension in his shoulders and the bags under his eyes. Was he tired? Nervous? He’d been joking, earlier, but it wasn’t long since he’d stormed out at Erwin’s, furious with Eren.

And before that, he’d been distant.

 _Because I’m too careful_ , Eren thought, nearly shocking a laugh out of himself. It wasn’t something he got called often—but he _was_ careful with Levi. Because he didn’t want to mess up. Was that so strange?

He glanced up. Four more floors to go. He stepped so he was standing in front of Levi, careful not to touch him with hands that had touched the elevator button and the taxi and the bar that circled this elevator; he didn’t have to. Levi looked up without prompting, and Eren pressed a kiss to his mouth.

There was a hitch of breath, and then the elevator dinged. Eren moved back, nearly skipping out the elevator.

“Oi.”

Eren lurched, tugged back towards Levi by the collar of his coat. Levi turned him and pulled him down, making it very clear that—height difference or no—he could still take charge. His mouth was insistent against Eren’s.

Heat settled in Eren’s abdomen, but before he could reach out for Levi the kiss had ended and he was being left behind. Levi walked to the door with brisk steps, Eren hot on his heels. He wanted to jump Levi the moment the door opened, but instead he moved to the kitchen sink and washed his hands, knowing Levi preferred it that way.

When he turned back to face Levi, ready to storm him, he was stopped by the strange look on Levi’s face.

“Do you want to take a shower?” Levi asked.

Eren blinked. “In general?”

A huff of breath. “Idiot. Together.”

Eren held off on replying, still trying to decipher that look. It was kind of similar to the lustful gazes from two nights ago, but there was something innocent about it. An expression of—what? Want? Love?

“You want to,” Eren said quietly. “Don’t you?”

“I asked if you did.”

“But it means something to you, doesn’t it?”

Levi glared. “Yes or no.”

“Yes. Of course yes. I was just curious, that’s all.”

 

 

 

“Turn.”

Eren turned so he was facing Levi, his eyes screwed tightly shut. He wasn’t sure if he was delighted or mortified to be in Levi’s beautiful marble-tiled shower with him, with the water cascading down both their bodies, but he was leaning more towards mortified. It was nice, feeling Levi rub the bath sponge over his chest, but it was too nice. All of it was too nice.

However old he felt, his body was only eighteen. And the person he fantasized about was naked in the shower with him, his touch careful on Eren’s body.

Eren’s eyes opened to slits, conscious of his labored breathing and the tension in his posture. He was sure Levi could see the tension, too—as if the raging boner wasn’t an indication.

 _Shit shit shit_ , Eren thought, wishing his body would just calm down. He knew Levi hadn’t brought him in here for shower sex. He chanced a glance at Levi’s face, and watched him glance down.

Eren saw Levi swallow and look away, his stare tracking the movement of the sponge in his hands faithfully now as if by force of will.

“Um—” Eren began. “I’m sorry—”

Levi swallowed again. “If I look too long, I’ll be the same way. Do you know how—well.”

“How what?”

Levi was working his way down Eren’s body, his touch still light despite his resolute expression. He was kneeling by the time he looked up and said, “How perfect you are.”

Eren groaned. He wasn’t going to get this visual out of his head any time soon. Couldn’t Levi have waited until he was standing up to say stuff like that? Did he have to be kneeling next to Eren’s straining erection?

Levi finished soaping up Eren’s legs, and motioned for him to sit down on the tile seat while he scrubbed his feet. Eren took deep breaths, trying to calm himself again, but when he saw that Levi’s cock had hardened too it became impossible.

Shower sex was out of the question, right?

Levi’s eyes narrowed when he saw Eren’s face. “No. There’s a way of doing things.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

A small smile appeared. “Tell your face that.” He stood and helped Eren up, steadying him until he was sure the soap wasn’t slicking the floor.

“Okay, well, I can’t help it. So you’ll have to get used to it.”

The smile widened. “I could get used to it,” Levi said, his voice far too seductive for someone insisting on keeping things non-sexual in here. He pulled Eren up against him, and his hand was sliding over Eren’s hip, towards his ass. “May I?”

Eren’s eyes closed again, color flooding his cheeks. He wasn’t going to shake. He wasn’t—except he thought that maybe he was shaking already. “Yes.”

“I’m not going to do anything—”

 _Just cleaning down there, I know_ , Eren thought. What embarrassed him was how much he wanted to lean into the gentle pressure, how much he wanted more. He took short, sharp breaths and waited for Levi to be done.

Levi was nothing if not thorough; it took a while.

“My turn,” Eren said desperately, grabbing the sponge and soaping it up. At least if he was the one doing the cleaning, Levi wouldn’t be examining him so carefully—wouldn’t be watching his face in that attentive way that did strange things to him. He emulated the care Levi had taken with him, finding it easier than he’d thought. He’d always been worshipful of Levi’s body—taut muscle beneath smooth skin, not heavily scarred this time around—and having an excuse to explore it wasn’t bad. Not bad at all. It became easy to take his time, and when he looked up he saw Levi had his head tipped back, his jaw clenched. Eren bit back a smile.

When he’d washed almost everything, he savored the glare on Levi’s face as he reached around to his ass. Levi hissed when Eren spread him open, fingers gentle. The glare turned into something else under Eren’s continued efforts, until Levi was panting against him, his erection pressing into Eren’s thigh. Eren couldn’t see Levi’s face, pressed into his collar, but he savored the feeling of flushed skin against his, the sound of Levi’s breaths.

If Eren didn’t know better, he might have thought Levi wanted to be the one on bottom tonight. But his words from their only other night together— _maybe I’ll let you_ —didn’t inspire confidence. It seemed like a favor, not something Levi was looking for.

“Enough.” Levi pushed him away roughly. “Wash that hand again and come out.”

He stepped out, almost as if he was running. Eren did as he was told, washing his hands thoroughly. “Was you escaping part of that ‘way of doing things’?” he called.

“No. Needs must.”

Eren turned off the faucet and stepped out of the shower, accepting a towel. He cocked an eyebrow at Levi, who’d dried in record time and was now wearing a blue towel around his waist. “Needs?”

Levi leveled him with a glare. “Have I ever told you how much I _hate_ shower sex? It’s a safety hazard. It’s cold tile and shitty lubrication.”

Eren swallowed just a tiny bit of disappointment. “I thought you’d be good at it.”

“Being good at something doesn’t mean you should do it. Doesn’t mean I won’t, but that’s not the point. My _need_ was to get out of there before I ruin this evening by forgetting how much I hate shower sex. And you were making me forget. ”

“Are you saying you want tonight to be perfect?” Eren asked, unable to keep a teasing smile from taking over his face—even though he knew he risked being thwacked with a wet towel if he continued in this vein.

Thankfully Levi didn’t thwack him, but he did glare, and take the towel from Eren, and dry the spots he’d missed with an air of impatience. A warm, soft feeling was starting to form in Eren’s chest. He thought back to nights in military barracks, him and his captain, talking by the light of spent kitchen fires or flickering lanterns. There was nothing romantic about those times, beyond Eren’s helpless crush. There had always been distance, and silence, and words that didn’t have to be said because they were obvious: that they were doing this for a reason, that they both needed companionship, that Eren didn’t just _happen_ to blunder into the kitchen after the first time he found Levi there at night.

Touch was impossible, back then, even when Eren ached to reach out. Now the distance between them could be bridged, crossed, shrunk down to nothing.

And the strangest thing in all of this was that Levi _wanted_ to be touched. Eren thought of the way Levi had grabbed his hand and placed it firmly against himself earlier this week, when they were kissing on the couch. He’d been impatient, tired of Eren’s hesitation, and it was one action in a growing list of them that proved to Eren that Levi really did like him.

For whatever reason—because he was aesthetically pleasing to Levi? Was that what he meant when he called Eren perfect?

Suddenly, the cold press of tiles against Eren’s back brought him back to the present, and he shook himself. Levi had backed him up without him noticing, and was pressing him into the wall, his leg between Eren’s.

Levi was only wearing a towel, but he looked fierce. “Distracted?” He asked, with a tone that told Eren there was a right answer.

“N—no.”

“No?”

Eren’s eyes slid away from Levi’s. “A little.”

Even peripherally, Eren could see the glare intensify. “Oh?”

“It’s your fault!” Eren said. A spark of courage lit within him, and he pushed back against Levi’s weight—and strength. Levi barely budged, and the spark changed into a forest fire.

He ducked a little, ignoring the way it put his cock in contact with Levi’s clothed thigh, and the next thing he knew he was carrying his former captain— _shit shit what am I doing_ —out of the bathroom and onto the bed. Levi’s eyes had widened in a way that made vindictive pleasure hum through Eren’s body, chasing away fear.

 _See how you like it,_ Eren thought, crawling on top of Levi and pinning him. Somehow the towel around Levi’s waist had stayed in place, but Eren thought he saw movement beneath it.

_Holy shit._

Eren was pushing his luck—and Levi liked it? Did he like being on bottom, rather than just tolerate it?

Good news of the century, right there.

Eren’s forehead dropped to press against Levi’s collar, his breath coming quickly. His mind was filling with images he hadn’t let himself consider before—or hadn’t admitted to considering, not to himself. He’d expected Levi to bottom now and then out of some sense of obligation. He hadn’t imagined Levi enjoying it, his face stained with color—

 _Shit._ Eren was getting too excited, and it wasn’t even certain. Maybe he’d seen wrong.

Eren rolled his hips, feeling a response beneath him. He was still holding Levi’s arms so he wouldn’t move, and now he moved his legs to spread Levi’s more widely, the towel coming undone. He rolled his hips again, and Levi’s eyes closed tightly, his teeth clenching.

A stutter of breath, then: “Brat. I’m not a science experiment.”

“Mm-hm?” Eren rolled his hips again.

Steel-grey eyes opened only to narrow at him. “Stop looking at me like that. I have trouble relaxing as it is.”

A sudden flood of embarrassment swept through Eren. He’d been forgetting this was new to Levi too, too caught up in his own excitement. It wasn’t his fault that Levi pinned and panting under him was a turn-on—was it? That was normal, right? What was the protocol, when both partners liked both positions?

Eren wasn’t sure.

Suddenly, he was no longer pinning Levi. He didn’t even feel his hold on Levi’s wrists breaking—it was just gone, one moment to the next, and Levi was sitting on top of him minus the towel, his face carefully blank.

“Out with it,” he commanded.

“With what?”

“Whatever’s bothering you. Whatever that ridiculous head of yours is thinking.”

“I was—” Eren looked away, cheeks reddening. “Wondering how we’re going to do this.”

“ _This_ sex or _this_ something else?”

“Former.”

When Eren looked back up to see what Levi thought of this, he saw Levi’s eyes had wandered. They took in Eren’s bare chest, his arms, the place where his and Levi’s bodies met, their cocks lying alongside each other. It made Eren feel flushed all over again, the way Levi looked at him.

“Have you ever finger-fucked yourself?” Levi asked, still gazing at Eren’s chest in that quiet, unsettling way.

If he’d been flushed before, Eren was on fire now. More specifically, his face was.

“Y—yeah.”

There was a corresponding rise of color in Levi’s face, though his expression didn’t change.

“Stop imagining it!” Eren yelled, mortified. “It makes you look like a dirty old man.”

“What, and me straddling a teenager naked doesn’t?”

“No!” He was breathing heavily, still squirming with embarrassment. He could feel Levi’s cock hardening, and he knew Levi hadn’t stopped imagining it when Eren had told him to.

Had Eren been this inhibited in his past life? He didn’t think so; maybe it was a product of the society he’d grown up in this time around. Or was it the fact that this was _Levi_ imagining him fingering himself?

That… could be it. Levi was still the person Eren had admired most in the world. He still had godly reflexes and a six-pack that could probably deflect missiles; he still cared more than he ever let on, and carried the weight of worlds on his shoulders as if they were his burden to bear. Eren tried to remind himself that Levi also talked about shit a lot, and that he was hopelessly awkward in a lot of social situations—but with the sixpack in full view it was hard to let that reassure him.

Meanwhile, Levi’s fingers were trailing down Eren’s chest as if it was a work of art. It wasn’t—he didn’t work out enough for that—but Levi seemed enchanted by Eren’s body nonetheless. It boosted his confidence even as it made him squirm.

“I want you in every way,” Levi said, without a trace of embarrassment in his voice. Eren heard the echo of his earlier words: _how perfect you are._ Levi’s callused fingers grazed Eren’s ribs. “I don’t care whose dick is in who at any given time. But for now—”

He moved, pulling the fallen towel out from its tangle and placing his leg between Eren’s. His thigh pushed up against Eren, awakening a new urge. “I think I’ll take the lead.”

Eren’s mouth was dry. He nodded shakily, sudden nerves gripping him, but then Levi was leaning over him, catching his mouth in a kiss that tasted of the green tea they’d drunk before showering. Strong fingers tugged at his hair and the tension went out of him—along with an involuntary sound of enjoyment. Had he _moaned_? Already?

Levi tugged at his hair again, and the same thing happened. Okay, so he was into hair-pulling—he could live with that. He could live with the way Levi’s other hand caressed his chest, and the hungry way he kissed. He could live with the slide of their bodies together, nothing separating them, and being allowed to touch _anything_. Eren’s hands traveled over Levi’s back muscles, his eyes closing as he remembered Levi’s form beneath that green cloak. To be able to touch what had lain beneath it—

His eyes opened in sudden shock. No, not what had lain beneath it. That skin had been covered in calluses and scars—that body had been riddled with aches.

And Eren had never touched it like this, even though he’d wanted to.

He locked his legs around Levi’s hips and pulled him in, kissing with sudden need. If he could hold on tight enough, kiss hard enough, maybe some of his warmth could press into that other life and chase out Levi’s past loneliness. Maybe it would reach—but it wouldn’t, would it? He knew how that life ended for Levi, and there had been little warmth in it.

A hard grip on his shoulder forced him back to the present, and then Levi’s hands were circling his wrists. Levi held him down, his mouth trailing down Eren’s neck. Sudden pain caused Eren to twitch—Levi was sucking on his skin, hard. Leaving marks.

Eren thrust up with his hips, seeking friction. He thought of waking up tomorrow with Levi’s marks on his skin, but there was no revulsion at the thought. Levi’s mouth moved to mark another spot, and Eren’s dick twitched in response.

“Please,” he said, not sure what he was asking for. Something. For Levi to stop holding his wrists, maybe, so he could touch—but Levi didn’t loosen his grip even when he descended down towards Eren’s chest.

Warm wetness against Eren’s nipple made Eren arch hopelessly. He could feel the flat of Levi’s tongue, then suction, and—

“Ugh, stop, stop.”

“Don’t like it?” Levi asked, rising up just a little.

“ _Like_ it. Too much.”

“Then stop struggling.”

Eren wasn’t sure how to stop struggling, since each flick of Levi’s tongue made his body arch in reflex, seeking more contact. He could feel Levi’s cock hard against him, so clearly Levi wasn’t as calm as he seemed, but he wasn’t twitching desperately like Eren was—and it made Eren want to provoke something in him. A moan, or an unwilling thrust. Something beyond this cool control.

So he twisted, and moaned, and did his best not to hold any of his responses back. Levi tried to hold him down, but he was starting to shake, and a muttered curse brought a smile to Eren’s lips. He slipped his wrists out of Levi’s now-weak grasp and used his freed hands to run through Levi’s hair, still damp from the shower. He tipped Levi’s face up to look at him.

“Just so you know,” Eren said. “I intend to wreck you. Utterly.”

“Oh?” There was a pleased light in Levi’s eyes. “Big words, there.”

“Mm. I’m competitive.”

Color grazed Levi’s cheekbones, and a small smile curled his lips. “I remember.”

Then Levi’s face was gone from his grasp because he was trailing kisses down Eren’s torso, over his belly button and down, ending at the head of his cock. Eren groaned in frustration, torn between wanting Levi’s mouth on him and wanting to get on with other things—but then Levi moved towards the nightstand, and Eren nearly sighed in relief. Good. They were starting. He hadn’t forgotten the ache he’d felt inside when Levi pressed his thigh up against his entrance.

“You’re not allergic to latex, are you?” Levi asked as he rummaged in the drawer of the nightstand.

Eren shook his head no, then blinked in confusion at the white, floppy object that had come out alongside a bottle of lube and a tin foil packet. A—glove?

Levi saw where he was looking. “You don’t mind, do you?”

Eren met Levi’s strangely apologetic gaze. “No—not at all. I just hadn’t thought of it.”

Levi looked down as he pulled the latex glove on over his right hand. “I’m sorry. It’s probably not what you imagined.”

Why was he so embarrassed about this? Eren sat up, his legs around the spot where Levi knelt, and dragged his fingers through Levi’s hair. _So soft_. His lips caught Levi’s in a kiss, sharing one breath, two—and then Eren pulled away.

“I don’t _want_ it to be like what I imagined. I want it to be real, for once.”

Levi looked away. “Cheesy.”

“You’re welcome. _Deary. Honey_.”

It made Levi crack a smile: mission success.

A moment later Levi was pushing him down, and there was a clicking sound from the lube bottle being opened. _This is happening_ , Eren thought, arching when Levi touched him. He’d been a mess, imagining this before: just the thought of it turned him into a writhing schoolgirl. But now—

His body ached for it. All over.

He nearly whimpered when he felt Levi’s fingers at his entrance. He _did_ whimper when he felt Levi’s tongue on the head of his cock, and he reached down for Levi’s free hand, tangling their fingers together. He needed something to anchor him, and it didn’t come a moment too soon. His stomach swooped as he felt Levi’s finger move inside of him. Two urges tore Eren: to thrust up into Levi’s mouth, or back against his fingers. Knowing that neither was polite, he managed to writhe in place in limp helplessness, the sensations overpowering him.

“Are you trying to shrimp away from me?” Levi asked, a note of laughter in his voice. Eren looked down and saw a raised eyebrow, which almost made up for the fact that Levi’s mouth was no longer on his cock.

“Shrimp away?” Eren asked, vaguely recalling a martial arts drill as he rose up on his elbows. “Uh—no. I… it’s a lot.”

“More than you can handle?”

“No.”

A second finger tested this theory, and Eren let his head drop back. He was used to the sensation from the times when he’d fingered himself, but the easy curl of Levi’s fingers blew any previous experiences out of the water.

“How… often have you done this?” Eren asked, a little shyly. He was painfully aware of it being his own first time, this lifetime. He knew it probably wasn’t Levi’s—his movements were too easy, lacking the awkwardness of a first lay.

Levi answered with a glare. “You really want to hear about me fucking other people while I have two fingers up your ass?”

“Uh… maybe… not,” Eren managed, as those fingers wriggled to prove a point. “I don’t… I’m not jealous, really.”

Except that he was, at least a little. He wanted everything to be new for Levi, too—he didn’t care that there had been others, only that maybe this wasn’t as special to him as it was to Eren.

“What idiotic thing are you thinking now?”

Eren looked away. “This is special to you, right?”

Two fingers jammed against his prostate—not gently, hardly even pleasurable given the pressure and the suddenness of it—and he looked up at Levi with a gasp, unable to see past the stars that swam across his vision. Levi didn’t say anything, just did it again—a little gentler this time, so it was less overwhelming, allowing pleasure to shimmer through. Five more times, then: “You want to make me fucking say it?”

Eren’s elbows had stopped holding him sometime after the third push, and he lay on the bed trembling. “Y-yeah, maybe I do.”

“I’m not going to say it,” Levi said, spreading his fingers. “You should know it by now. Shit. You really can be a kid sometimes.”

“You can be an ass.”

“Ooh, ouch. Hit me with more established facts.”

Eren couldn’t help it, then: he laughed. And while he laughed, Levi kept doing that _thing_ with his fingers, rendering Eren completely helpless as jerks of laughter and pleasure took over his body. “You fucking—ass—” _Breathe._ “You’re—so—ugh.”

It didn’t help that Levi’s mouth had settled back over his cock, and again the mix of sensations was driving him wild.

“I’m going to—make you—regret—this.” Eren gasped a breath. “ _Fuck_.”

Levi’s mouth left him. “Sorry. No way are you going to make me regret this fuck. Or isn’t that what you meant to say?”

Eren launched up, trying to grab at Levi. “Let me be on—” a wave of pleasure traveled through him “—effing—top!”

Levi pushed him back down, his fingers still stroking inside Eren, his mouth pressing against Eren’s in a teasing kiss. Eren clung to that kiss, sucking Levi’s lip and trying to keep contact as if the person doing this to him could also be the one to save him from drowning.

Not likely. Levi was enjoying his despair too much.

“Okay,” Eren said. “ _Please._ Enough with the fingers? I’m ready.”

For once, Levi didn’t make Eren fight for it—which may have had a lot to do with Levi’s own straining erection. Eren tore his eyes away from the slight upward curve of it, the wetness at the tip, and grabbed the condom wrapper lying next to him. He ripped it open while Levi tossed his used glove in the trashcan at the side of the bed, and they met in the middle.

“Want me to put it on with my mouth?” Eren asked, wiggling his eyebrows. “I’ve never used one of these before—seems like fun.”

Levi stared. “You really are a hopeless virgin.”

“That’s a… yes?”

“No—here, give—”

Eren rose up onto his knees, keeping the condom out of Levi’s reach. “No, nope, I get to put it on.”

“ _Are you five years old?!”_

Eren laughed as Levi glared and tried to get the condom from him without standing up on the mattress. Eren leaned away. “Afraid you’ll get me pregnant, captain?”

“Fuck you.”

“Okay. If you sit down and let me do this, we can get on that.”

Eren grinned when Levi complied, and—as thanks—did _not_ put the condom on using his mouth, though he promised himself he would one day. It rolled on easily enough using just his fingers.

“Thank fuck,” Levi said. “I don’t have a lot of condoms in that drawer, you know. If you ruined this one…”

A trickle of pleasure ran through Eren at the idea that Levi was apparently planning to need more condoms in their near future, before they had a chance to run to the store.

Levi’s face showed expectancy, and a stillness that looked—to Eren—like nervousness. Eren leaned forward, gripping Levi’s chin and kissing him slowly, his tongue tracking past teeth, moving against the warmth of Levi’s tongue. The kiss felt important, though Eren wasn’t sure why. Maybe because Levi seemed nervous, and it would reassure him. Maybe because kissing Levi always felt important.

After a time, Levi began to bend him back, and Eren dropped against the mattress, his whole body thrumming with anticipation. Levi ran his hands down Eren’s sides, his gaze almost—reverential.

But Eren didn’t have long to think about that, because then Levi was lining himself up with his entrance, and Eren could feel warmth and the slickness of lube. Levi took a breath—and then he was pushing in, and further in…

Eren closed his eyes, his breath coming short.

“Pain?” Levi asked, worry in his voice.

“No. Just a dick up my ass. Keep going.”

Levi’s full-body snort functioned to do just that. Eren began to raise his hips to ease the tight feeling, trying to get comfortable around it. Levi pulled back a bit in answer, easing the pressure, then moved forward again. When Eren looked up through his lashes, he saw a flush on Levi’s cheeks and his eyes half-closed in bliss, his chest heaving with the effort of holding himself back. He was on his knees, Eren’s legs wrapped around his waist, and the sight loosened something in Eren.

Eren raised his hips more, and with one final push they were joined completely. Steel-gray eyes met his, making his mouth go dry. Neither of them was smiling, and more than just the lust-haze there was a strange new realization:

They could do this. They _were_ doing this. And it felt—good.

Levi moved, and Eren bit back a groan. Good or not, he still felt way too full, and the pressure inside of him was making him overheat. He thrust his hips up, trying to change the angle, and Levi caught his leg, raising it.

“Ah!”

That was it—the angle his body had been seeking, the one that would make him forget about any discomfort. Suddenly the fullness was tantalizing, a backdrop to the floating sensation Levi caused in him each time he rolled his hips forward.

Eren’s breath hissed out through his teeth. He’d promised to wreck Levi, but now he wasn’t sure how to do that without wrecking himself completely first.

“Faster,” he mumbled. “You can go faster.”

“I’ll go at whatever pace I—nnh.”

Eren had laid his arms flat against the bed and clenched his abs to buck up into Levi harder, increasing the pace himself. His whole body would hurt tomorrow, but he ceased to care about tomorrow when he saw Levi buckle, his grey eyes unfocused.

“What was that?” Eren asked between rasping breaths, his body still pumping. “I couldn’t hear you over the geriatrics ward yelling that they want their old man back.”

He was tiring quickly, but it was worth it to feel Levi rise higher on his knees and clench his hands around Eren’s hips, beginning to thrust harder. “You’ll take—my cock—at whatever pace—I—”

Eren didn’t hear the end of the sentence; his head had dropped back, and he was fairly sure he was drooling. He wiped his mouth, letting Levi hold him up now. He’d have bruises on his hips tomorrow, but that thought only served to excite him further—because this body could be marked. He would walk around with traces of Levi on his skin for days, hidden beneath his clothes. He felt a rush of affection not just for Levi but for this new body— _fully human_ —that would carry his memories for him.

“Levi?”

“Mm?”

Eren couldn’t see Levi—his eyes were still closed, his head turned into the pillow—but there was warmth in Levi’s voice, however much Eren had provoked him.

“Let’s never stop,” Eren said.

There was a pause, the pace slowing even as Levi’s movements got bigger: great, rolling waves instead of sharp thrusts. “Idiot virgin.” Affection laced his words.

“Yeah. So what do you say?”

“Okay.”

A grin split Eren’s face, and it stayed in place until the tempo changed once more. Soon he was aching again, no longer thinking much in the space between thrusts. When he grabbed for his throbbing cock—ignored this long time, and becoming harder to ignore by the second—Levi slapped his hand away and took over, seeming to want control over Eren’s pleasure; Eren didn’t have the words to protest.

“I’m close,” he ground out, when his whole body seemed poised on the brink, muscles tense, every part of him aware of the grind of Levi’s cock against his core.

“Let me hear you,” Levi said. Eren had noticed the way he shook at Eren’s involuntary noises, so his words were no surprise—but they did push him closer to the edge. He’d tried to be quiet, for his dignity’s sake, but he wasn’t a quiet person. When his orgasm finally came, he grabbed at bed sheets and keened, feeling Levi continue to pound into him as the moment drew out—and out. His stomach was sticky with his own cum, but he could do nothing to wipe it off. He was still held captive by bliss—and then Levi’s movements were growing erratic, and his hands were reaching for Eren as if he could hold all of him in his grasp, and Eren was clenching around Levi in answer, reaching back.

A choked sound, the jagged, rolling motions of Levi riding out his own orgasm—then stillness punctuated by harsh breathing.

Eren was out of breath, completely worn-out. He felt Levi draw out and mop up the mess with the towel he’d discarded earlier. Eren’s eyes closed; he heard the condom hitting the trash can, and expected to hear the bathroom door next—but instead the bed dipped. Levi lay down next to him, propped up on an elbow so he could see Eren’s face.

Eren smiled hazily. “Hey.”

“Hey. I’m sorry I couldn’t keep it going forever.”

Another smile tugged at Eren’s lips—because he hadn’t meant the sex when he said _let’s never stop_.

Levi’s gaze slid from Eren’s eyes to his mouth. “Can I kiss you?”

“You’re asking?” His tone added, _after that?_

This seemed to stump Levi, whose mouth opened soundlessly, unable to find words—and Eren didn’t give him time to recover. His hand snaked up behind Levi’s head and drew it down, the soft bristles of Levi’s undercut tickling his palm. Levi’s short huff of surprise was cut short by Eren’s lips moving against his, and Eren savored the strange, tentative way his former captain kissed him back—as if it was their first kiss all over again.

Eventually the press of tongues and lips faded into shared breath, and Levi drew back looking less lost than he had a moment ago, steel-grey eyes the gentlest Eren had ever seen them. His hand came up to brush aside Levi’s bangs in an unconscious gesture of tenderness—and jerked when he realized what he was doing, and more importantly, to whom. Suddenly he was a teenager again, nursing a crush for his superior officer—but that life was over. He let his hand finish the motion, slow and steady.

“For the record,” Levi said, his eyes nearly closed, “That was my first time too.”

“What? I don’t believe you. Why wouldn’t you tell me that right away?”

“So you’d think I knew what I was doing.”

Eren stared.

“Fake it till you make it,” Levi said, then, sounding just like Hange: “There’s a psychological precedent.”

“You’re serious.”

His eyes opened a little wider, and he smiled. “Sorry. I didn’t want to get nervous.”

Eren laid down on his back, disbelieving. His old captain, faking confidence with him. _Really?_ But somehow it was almost—endearing.

“Fine,” he said, facing Levi again, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips. “I’ll forgive you.”

One of Levi’s eyebrows rose. “Generous.”

Eren moved in closer, determined to touch Levi as much as he could now he could: brushing fingers through his soft hair, placing gentle kisses. They stayed like that for a while, all soft touches and no words.

“Let’s never stop,” Eren said again. The sincerity in his request didn’t scare him, though he thought it might scare Levi now that the context was different—no longer an unthinking plea during sex. Could Eren demand forevers from Levi? Was that a realistic request?

“Okay,” Levi said simply. He moved Eren’s arm and put it around himself so he could lay his body flush against Eren’s.

“You’re sure? You won’t decide this is a bad idea and try to break up with me again?”

Levi was silent for a long time—so long that Eren had just about given up on getting an answer, but then he spoke: “Sorry. Your lack of self-preservation scared me.”

Eren waited through another long silence for more, but there was none forthcoming, and it was hard to care with Levi’s warmth pressing into his front and his limbs growing heavy with sleep. The light was still on, and he _really_ ought to pull on something to sleep in, but his eyelids were lowering. He felt Levi tug the blankets up over them, and then nothing.

 

 

 

Levi woke to his phone buzzing on the nightstand. The room was dark—he’d dragged himself to the light switch and shut it off, half-asleep, earlier—and Eren was still wrapped around him, his body like a hot brand against Levi’s. Deep, even breaths ruffled Levi’s hair as he extricated himself carefully, trying not to disturb Eren. He grabbed the phone, headed to the bathroom, and closed the door behind him.

“Yes?” Levi said when he accepted the call. The bathroom tiles were cold under his bare feet, and he realized he’d forgotten to check caller ID or the clock. What time was it? It felt late, still, rather than early.

“Levi?”

Petra, then. Why was she calling in the middle of the night?

“Yes, it’s me. You woke me up.”

“I know—I—you sound different.”

“What kind of different?” Shit, he should have put some clothes on before stepping in here. He thought longingly of Eren lying sprawled in the bed, his skin hot to the touch.

“Not-pissed-at-me-for-waking-you-up different. Has something good happened?”

“Work’s easier,” Levi lied smoothly. She knew Eren was in the picture in some way—but he wasn’t going to enlighten her while standing naked in his dark bathroom. He was already starting to shiver. “So? Why are you calling me? I assume you have a reason that couldn’t wait.”

“It _can_ wait, it’s just—we weren’t sure you’d want us to. We’ve had contact with another group.”

“Our people?” Levi asked, suddenly a lot more alert. He wasn’t sure why he continued to feel like he had to find others like him, but he did. If there was anyone in this world haunted by their shared past, he needed them to know they weren’t alone.

“Not exactly,” Petra said. She took a breath. “Other reincarnations, but—not our people. The titan group. Three people, including the two who broke down the walls—and the one who killed us.”

“What?” His voice was gone; it came out as a whisper.

“They contacted us; I think they want to reconcile. Well, they say they do—but what I’m saying is, I believe them. And if they do, maybe more of you should be here for it.”

It was far too early for this. Or late. Too early or late in the day to even consider the idea that Eren’s former companions might reconcile with them, or want to. Didn’t they have the decency to go die, somewhere far away?

“Levi?”

“I’m not sure what to say.”

“I figured. I’m sorry for jumping this on you, but… I didn’t think I’d get any sleep if we _didn’t_ tell you.”

Levi shook his head, rubbing his free hand up and down his arm. “That’s fine. Thank you for telling me. How did they contact you?”

“E-mail. I’ve forwarded it to you. Don’t let this ruin anything, okay? We can ignore them if we want to.”

He snorted. Yeah, like that was an option. Maybe if he didn’t tell Eren, they could—but if Eren ever found out Levi had kept this from him, he’d kill Levi.

An unbidden image of Eren rose up in his mind: face turned into the pillow, flushed and panting, his hands grabbing at anything. Levi’s mouth went dry, and he closed his eyes.

 _Not the right time_ , he thought to himself, wondering if Petra had heard the hitch in his breath. Now that he wasn’t stumbling around sleep-drunk, there were a lot of mental pictures vying for his full attention, and none of them were appropriate right now—though he hoped to go over them in great detail later. He sighed heavily.

“Thanks for telling me, Petra. You’re doing well?”

She laughed. “It’s past three in the morning where you are, Levi. I’ll update you some other time.”

He smiled. “Consideration, finally. All right—bye.”

“Bye, Levi. Good luck with your work.” Her voice was soft, but he could hear the smile in it nonetheless. She didn’t believe him about the work thing, then—good. He hadn’t trained her to be stupid. She disconnected, and Levi let out a long breath.

He was freezing, now, and very aware of the dried sweat on his body and his hand smelling like latex. Any other day he would have hopped in the shower, but the lure of an Eren-warmed bed kept him from it. He washed his hands and snuck back into the bedroom, ready to siphon off the sleeping boy’s heat—

Only to find Eren peering up at him blurrily, the lamp on the nightstand on. Levi sighed again, and found some underwear to put on so he wouldn’t have to stand here naked while Eren gave him the third degree.

Except—Eren was pulling back the blanket, arms out. Levi shook himself—of course Eren didn’t know what the conversation had been about. He knew he ought to enlighten the boy before stealing his warmth, but Levi was a weak man. He crawled into bed and let Eren wrap himself around him. A sigh shuddered out of Levi’s frozen body.

Eren was so _warm_. Better than a hot shower.

Presently, Eren had moved on top of him, and seemed to be waking up a little. His hair stood up in all directions, and his half-lidded eyes raked down Levi’s chest. The sleep-sweet smile tipped Levi off to his intentions.

Eren was trying to start something.

“Don’t you ache all over?” Levi asked. He’d seen the love bites on Eren’s neck and shoulders, and knew he hadn’t been gentle with Eren in other ways—especially for a first time.  

“Mm. Yeah.” Eren nosed Levi’s head aside and began placing kisses against his neck, causing Levi’s muscles to clench with awakening need. Temptation swept through him; if he didn’t tell Eren about the shifters, they could continue this. He could feel those long limbs moving against his, and Levi knew that if he let him, Eren would take charge this time.

The draw was there, but the timing wasn’t.

“No—Eren, I need to tell you something. That was Petra.”

Eren stopped abruptly. “Good news? Or bad?”

“Not sure, yet, but—the shifters. The ones who broke down the walls. They’ve contacted her.”

Levi watched the eyes above him change as Eren’s expression transitioned from boyish curiosity to something lethal—something Levi hadn’t seen in this lifetime, but recognized immediately. He wondered how he had recognized Eren without it, now that he saw it again.


	11. Superstitions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, and sorry for taking so long! ;-; Thank you to all who have commented. I haven't replied because I felt guilty on taking so long on the update, but suffice to say it's because of you (and people asking me on tumblr) that I did; I tend to think everyone stops caring if updates are slow--and for this fic I struggle with the fact that the manga has diverged so far from where I started it, ha. Thank you if you've stuck with me!
> 
> In summary: last chapter there were sexy times and a message from the titan shifters.

“Eren.”

Step, step, step, turn. Step, step, step, turn. Eren paced endlessly in the empty space between the couch and the kitchen island in Levi’s otherwise soundless apartment, watched by three different pairs of eyes. Levi regarded him with a neutral expression, glad that the arrival of Armin and Mikasa meant he wasn’t solely responsible for Eren anymore. Armin sat in an armchair, his face screwed into a tight frown, and Mikasa was perched on the arm of the couch, both of them watching intently. It wasn’t what Levi had wanted to be doing at seven AM on a Saturday morning, _especially_ not after last night, but it was inevitable.

Levi should have realized what news of the titan shifters would do to Eren. No—he _had_ realized. But he hadn’t quite imagined Eren would react by losing all sense and insisting on flying to Los Angeles right away, never mind that there had been no info in the e-mail. Did Eren think he could walk up and down the west coast until he found the shifters?

“Eren,” Armin said again.

“ _At least_ let me e-mail them,” Eren said, looking first at Levi then at Armin. He focused on the latter. “Did Petra forward their mail to you, too?”

Armin looked away, and that was answer enough for Eren. “She did! Forward it, please—”

“Levi’s right,” Mikasa interrupted. “You can’t be the one to contact them. They didn’t tell us where they live or what their names are. If we mess this up, they may never contact us again.”

Eren turned on her. “Why are you so calm about this?”

“I want to contact them,” Mikasa said, “But only in a way that will tempt them out. I want answers, not just vengeance.”

“I don’t just want vengeance!”

Levi looked away. Before he’d wrestled Eren away from his laptop and deleted Petra’s e-mail, Eren had wanted to send the shifters all sorts of things—curses, pictures of his mother, angry tirades. There hadn’t been anything about answers.

“Eren,” Armin said, and Levi was surprised at the vulnerability in his voice. “We’ve talked about Annie before.”

“Yes,” Eren said. “ _Annie_.”

“They were all working together.”

“Annie killed soldiers, not civilians.”

“Because of her size—because that was her part. If she’d been the colossal one—”

“But she wasn’t!” Eren shouted, beginning to sound desperate.

Levi looked at Armin, noting his bent shoulders and the tightness of his expression. He’d folded vulnerability around himself like a weapon, intent on dispersing Eren’s anger. Levi understood the implications: Armin had feelings for the cold girl in the crystal, and Eren knew of them. Eren might even have adjusted his own feelings to support his friend; if there was a way through Eren’s anger, it was this.

“Do you really think that way, Eren?” Armin asked. His tone added, _Are you really that stupid?_

And finally—for the first time since four that morning—Eren sat down.

He dropped his head into his hands. “So what are we going to do?”

“What does your team want to do?” Armin asked Levi.

“They’re open to reconciliation,” Levi said, ignoring _your team_. Sometimes he felt like they were back in their former lives; this was one of those times, and he didn’t blame Arlert for slipping up. “They’ll be in contact. I imagine we can go out there to meet them. _Carefully_.”

“You don’t think they’re still trying to kill us?” Armin’s voice was incredulous.

“It doesn’t make sense, but nothing about this life does. Sometimes I feel…” Levi shook himself. He hadn’t had enough sleep; why was he saying these things?

“Like you’re waiting to wake up?” Mikasa finished in a soft voice. “Waiting for something to go wrong.”

Levi nodded.

“That’s because you’re traumatized,” Armin said, looking around at them. “We all are. People don’t recover from the kind of things we’ve been through.”

He said it in such a bright, matter-of-fact way the meaning of his words nearly passed Levi by.

“Anyway,” Armin said. “Being careful isn’t bad, either. So. What’s the plan?”

 

 

 

 

“You’re all going to be kicked out of school,” Levi said, his hand tight around his phone as he threw shirts from his closet onto the bed. “Isn’t Arlert on a scholarship? And your parents—”

“Are not you, so why are you worrying?” Eren’s voice was distracted. “I thought you didn’t mind me dropping out.”

“I don’t mind you making a conscious decision to drop out,” Levi said. “There’s a difference.”

He tried to loosen his hand from around his phone. He’d been tense and agitated all week as plans went through after Petra’s phone call, and—as usual—there had been no time to discuss post-coital feelings. Several times Levi found himself daydreaming about _not_ getting that phone call from Petra—about waking up slowly with Eren nuzzling his neck, his body warm against Levi’s—maybe kicking him in the shins until he went and brushed his teeth. _Normal_ post-coital things—but instead they were headed across the country to confront mass-murderers from a previous life.

He knew which one he’d rather be doing.

“Hey, Levi?”

Eren’s voice was softer than it had been all week.

“What?”

“I’m sorry everything always falls apart right after we have sex.”

Levi sat down on the bed, his legs weak all of a sudden. “So you’ve noticed that, too.”

“Sort of hard not to, right? But I’m not superstitious, so…”

“If this is an attempt to join the mile-high club, forget it. I’m never going to have sex in an airplane bathroom. Also, unless you’re forgetting, _you tried to fight me_ to get at my laptop. We have things to talk about.”

There was a silence, then a quiet sigh. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Levi felt himself relax, just a little.

“But we’re okay, right?” Eren asked, his words fast. “You aren’t having second thoughts again?”

“I’m always having second thoughts, but we’re okay.”

And somehow, saying it made it a little more true.

 

 

 

 

_Eren’s heat around him was intense. He lay beneath him, his eyes half-closed, a flush over his features._

_He’d wanted this as badly as Levi had._

_There was a blur of motion—or perhaps reality blurred—and then Eren was on top of him, smiling, beginning to move his hips. He ran his fingers over Levi’s chest, dragged them up into his hair, pulled his head aside to press a kiss to his neck._

_“Captain…”_

 

Levi started awake, immediately aware of cool, dry air blowing against his forehead and the warmth of someone’s shoulder under his cheek. He could also feel his arousal tightening his pants beneath the metal clasp of his seatbelt.

They were flying.

He’d been drooling on Eren’s shoulder for the past however long; no wonder his dream had evoked Eren’s image so viscerally. His scent was right there to draw from, even if this Eren was wearing a tattered-looking hoodie and jeans, not naked in bed with him.

He rested his hand over the bulge in his pants, hoping Eren hadn’t been looking. Mikasa sat on Eren’s other side, in the aisle seat.

“You’re awake,” Eren said, with a small smile. Great—he didn’t look smug enough to have noticed it.

“I don’t normally sleep on flights,” Levi said, a little embarrassed. He was sure he’d fallen asleep with his head back, not tipped over onto Eren’s shoulder.

“I don’t think you had much choice. It seems Hange drugged you.”

Levi blinked. The last time he’d flown with Hange, he’d constantly gotten up to wash his hands, feeling like the recycled air was making him dirty. That had been a long time ago, though; he was surprised they still remembered. He would be angry, except he halfway remembered telling them to drug him next time.

Apparently they had the memory of an elephant.

“We’re going to land soon,” Eren told him. His eyes were downcast, just a bit, his expression softer than it had been in a while. His hand bumped into Levi’s, knuckle brushing against knuckle in a casual caress. Levi held the contact, and Eren’s hand wrapped around his.

It was the most physical contact they’d had since Levi dragged Eren away from the computer the morning he found out about the shifters—well, besides nodding off on Eren’s shoulder, and Levi took no responsibility for what his body did while he was drugged and asleep—even if it included having sex dreams like a horny sixteen year-old.

Thankfully, the evidence was gone not long after, even if the dream lingered in the back of his mind all through landing and disembarking. He gave his head a mental shake when he saw Petra outside the airport, waving and yelling and—it looked like—crying and laughing at the sight of Eren.  

“You got so tall,” she said when they were closer.

“Twice,” Eren said, smiling. He bore Petra’s extra-long hug admirably, and Levi saw his eyes close, his hands bunching in the back of her shirt.

He looked away.

At least Auruo was still standoffish in this life, not having warmed to the whole hugging thing. He stood by the van waiting while the others greeted each other, looking out of place but happy. Auruo Levi could deal with; Petra he was less certain about, after the sidelong glance she sent him on their way to the van.

“I can’t believe you’re all here,” Petra said from the front seat as Auruo started driving away from the airport. It _was_ surreal; so many of the people Levi had spent his life looking for, crammed into a minivan. “Why do you live on the east coast, again?”

Erwin wasn’t there to field the question, and Hange looked at Levi expectantly, as if he determined where they lived. He met Petra’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

“I’ve been asking myself the same question.”

Before, the answer had always been _because the people here smile too much_ , or _it’s too spread out here_ or _I feel like I have a better chance of finding people there_ —and the change registered in the faces of the people who had heard those answers.

There were more people to find: Mike, Nanaba, other squad leaders and trained soldiers who deserved to know their crazy memories were real—or at least shared—but there was a part of him sure that if he hadn’t found them yet, they couldn’t be found in the current way. The park Petra and the others had helped fund and build would be a beacon for those who wanted to be found—they could help with immigration once they were contacted—whereas those who didn’t show up might not be born yet, or happier on their own.

He hoped he could make that assumption.

“And what made you pick New York?” Petra asked the others.

“Movies,” Armin answered easily. “And we thought we could find Hange in some university.”

“But you met Levi walking along a street,” Petra said, smiling. “Strangely poetic, isn’t it?”

Levi’s chest felt tight. He’d thought about that himself, a lot—and it always made him nervous, how random his meeting with Eren was. In another universe—and he had cause to believe there _were_ other universes—he and Eren might never have met each other again.

“It’s not that poetic,” Mikasa said, in her usual deadpan. “Eren went out every morning in different neighborhoods at the same time. There was a system.”

_Oh_. He hadn’t even known that; he just knew Eren walked around a lot.

Eren shrugged. “I’m not sure I ever expected to find anyone, though. It was just worse to _not_ do it.”

Levi looked at him, wondering why they hadn’t talked about this properly. At first there was the awkwardness of realizing their memories were different—and then—

He wasn’t sure. Maybe living in a world where sudden death wasn’t par for the course was making them slow, causing them to tiptoe around things. Then again, that was what they’d always done, wasn’t it?

“So I guess that means you can get a new haircut,” Petra said, grinning at Levi in the rearview mirror.

Levi raised a hand to the soft bristles at the back of his head, considering it.

“I can’t even imagine you with different hair,” Armin said—Armin, who’d abandoned the long hair of his past life. Levi still couldn’t stop thinking of him as _mushroom head_ despite that; his old hair had left an impression.

“That’s Levi’s decision,” Eren said, sounding almost annoyed. Everyone in the car—Levi included—looked at him in surprise.

Everyone but Mikasa. “He likes the way the bristles feel,” she said, causing color to bloom in Eren’s cheeks.

“You didn’t have to say that to everyone!”

“No secrets among friends, right?”

“It wasn’t a secret anyway,” Hange said. “I’ve been keeping everyone informed.”

“Weekly updates,” Petra said, and this time it was Hange she was grinning at in the rearview mirror. Her face sobered a moment later. “Speaking of…”

“Shouldn’t we wait until we’re back to base?” Auruo said.

“Well, now you can’t,” Hange said. “What’s the news?”

“They said they’d meet us,” Petra said, her voice solemn. “Somewhere in the open.”

The silence that followed was oppressive. Levi wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t care the way others did; the shifters had been renegades in their other lives, fighting for a cause Levi didn’t understand, but he knew better than most how little that meant in this life. He’d spent precious years trying to accept that the other life no longer mattered, couldn’t be changed, didn’t mean anything in this one. The shifters probably had to accept the same.

Petra and Auruo seemed calm about it too, despite the fact that Annie had killed them—although perhaps they were just being calm for others’ sakes.

“Do we think they’re dangerous?” Armin asked, and his question was met with another long silence.

“I don’t see why they would be,” Hange said, at last. “Although I’m curious why they would seek us out.”

“It might be guilt,” Armin said, cautiously. “Putting ghosts to rest.”

Levi glanced at Eren; he was being suspiciously silent, his hands folded tightly together, shoulders tense.

“It wouldn’t hurt to be prepared,” Levi said. “Have some of us hang back out of sight, in case things go south.”

“You’d shoot them in the street?” Armin asked.

“I doubt that’d be necessary.”

Levi was more concerned with holding Eren back, if he decided killing Reiner and Bertholdt was more important than not going to prison—but he knew he’d be able to do that by himself, if he had to.

They talked about it more—meeting locations, the shifters’ motivations—but Eren didn’t say another word.

It was a long car ride.

 

 

 

 

Once they got to Petra’s house, there was a surprise waiting for them. Levi looked up—and up, and up.

“Mike,” he said, and he was surprised his voice worked because his lungs were tight. He’d forgotten to breathe.

“We thought we’d surprise you,” Petra said. “You were already planning to visit by the time Mike got here, so…”

“I fucking hate surprises,” Levi said, but when Mike held open his arms—his huge, trunk-like arms—Levi walked right into them.

He wasn’t even annoyed when he felt Mike sniffing his hair, or when Hange walked into the hug and started crying on both of them.

Shit, he hated stuff like this. But Mike was _alive_ —and he was with them.

“Nanaba?” Levi asked, when he’d drawn back.

Mike shook his head, at the same time as Petra said, “We’ll find her.”

“Does Erwin know?”

“Yes,” Petra said. “He said that you hated surprises.”

_He was right_ , Levi thought, though he was too happy to be annoyed.

“We’ll let you get settled in, and then I think a tour of the park is in order?”

Levi looked back at the others: the golden trio was nodding, and Hange’s eyes were still bright with tears, their hand around Mike’s wrist as if they were afraid to let him go. Levi nodded, too.

“Where is everyone sleeping?” Armin asked. “This is a big house, but…”

“Two guest rooms, and lots of pull-out couches,” Petra said. “I thought I’d let you fight over them. If you get sick of each other you can stay with Eld or with Gunther’s family—they live in town.

Levi wondered if he should take her up on that offer; this many people around was going to be a strain, even if they were people he liked, who he’d searched for.

He was already feeling overwhelmed.

Hange claimed a room for themself and Mike—they’d cleaved to Levi the same way, when they’d found each other—and Armin asked about Eld and Gunther, how they were doing. Levi wasn’t really listening, but he heard when Eren said his name softly.

“Hm?” he asked.

“Can we talk?”

He looked at the group—still discussing—and nodded, leading Eren up the stairs to the guest room he’d stayed in last time. The view from the window was all bland suburbia, manicured lawns that no doubt contributed to California’s droughts in the summer—but the room was spotless.

His team was still his team, in some ways.

“Can I stay with you?” Eren asked. “I know you’re upset with me, but I’d like to.”

Levi sighed. He was wound up tight; he didn’t want to be upset with Eren—and he wasn’t, not really. He just wished things would be predictable for a while.

“Don’t do your old-person sigh at me,” Eren said, surprising a snort out of Levi. “You’re still in your twenties in this life, you know.”

“Sorry for old-person-sighing,” Levi said, fighting a smile, trying to sound annoyed. “You can stay, if you promise not to mumble assassination plots in your sleep.”

“Armin’s talked me out of killing them, anyway,” Eren said, tugging at one of the drawstrings on his hoodie. He looked a little guilty.

“Oh?”

“Well, if we’re careful, and it’s not their mission to kill us this time… it’s okay. I can see them. I don’t have to forgive them, but I want to meet with them.”

Levi nodded. “Okay.”

“Do you? Forgive them, I mean?”

“I don’t know,” Levi answered honestly. It didn’t feel important, whether he forgave them or not. “I didn’t know them like you did. It wasn’t a betrayal for me.”

“They broke down the walls,” Eren said.

“I know.”

“Do you always take things in stride?”

Levi huffed a laugh. “You know I don’t.”

And then Eren smiled, and Levi felt his chest tighten. It had been a while since Eren had smiled in that particular way, just for him—it felt like sunshine on a cold day. Always did, even when Eren was grubby after a plane ride and in his most unflattering clothes. It made Levi want to walk forward and put his arms around him, rest his head on his shoulder.

Why didn’t he? It was allowed, wasn’t it? But Levi’s hands hung limp at his sides, fingers twitching to touch. He’d always been singularly bad at this.

Something in Eren’s expression said Eren had caught onto his nervousness—a light in his eyes, maybe, or the way his gaze steadied. He took a step forward, gathered up Levi’s limp hands in his warm ones. Levi felt like an awkward teenager.

“You’re glaring,” Eren told him, his voice low.

“Am not.” He probably was.

Eren bent down slowly. Levi didn’t break eye contact; he knew he was watching Eren too closely, but the whole theme where they worked things out between them only to have something bad happen had made him feel cautious—like the universe was trying to trick him and he had to catch it at it.

Finally Eren’s gaze flickered from his, to his mouth, and he closed the last distance between them. Levi’s lips tingled where Eren’s touched them—parted—and Eren tasted like mint, like maybe he’d brushed his teeth after getting off the plane too. It made Levi grab onto his hands, press, made him kiss back.

Eren’s downcast eyes and flushed face when he drew back were a sight for sore eyes.

_I’m too old for this_ , Levi thought, which wasn’t true, but the thought was force of habit. He’d felt ancient for so long; having his body light up like the sky at New Year’s because of a lanky teenager felt undignified.

There was a knock at the door before he could feel too embarrassed about it.

“Please don’t claim rooms by having sex in them,” Armin shouted through it. “We’re willing to give you this one without drastic measures. Your stuff is outside the door, and we’re leaving to visit the park soon.”

Eren still hadn’t dropped his hands.

“I’ll do what I want,” Eren shouted back, and there was a laugh in response. Levi shook his head. _Definitely too old for this—_ but Eren kissed him again before going to open the door, and this time the kiss was accompanied by hands in his hair, cradling his face, and a slowness that made Levi’s knees feel weak.

Maybe he wasn’t _that much_ too old for it, after all.


	12. Shift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary of previous chapter: Eren became a little violent after the shifters contacted the special ops team, the crew flew to the west coast & are staying at Petra's house, and they're arranging to meet with the shifters near there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank everyone who's commented or left messages on tumblr; it's so encouraging to know there are people who still care, and you're seriously the nicest crowd ever. THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUING PATIENCE.
> 
> One chapter left to go after this! I hope you'll enjoy as it wraps up.

The park was amazing.

It wasn’t what Eren had been expecting—somehow, he’d imagined a town sprawl reminiscent of Trost or some other relic of his past life—but there was _potential_. “Buildings” of different heights and sizes stuck out of the ground in a way that was almost town-like, but among them were obstacles and circles in the sky, like a training course. Eren tried to imagine it with screaming teenagers whizzing everywhere and had to hold his breath; all he could think was _lawsuit waiting to happen_. When he asked Petra about it she told him about consent forms and _all necessary precautions_ , whatever that meant. There were courses of different difficulties, and Eren’s body ached to fly.

“Can we?” he asked.

“By the time we’re done gearing up and explaining the new equipment to you it’ll be dark,” Petra said. “But I’m glad you want to.”

“Who wouldn’t?”

“Me, maybe.” Armin was looking up at the high fake buildings. “But then again…”

“Then again, you’re lying,” Mikasa said. “Come on. It was fun.”

“It _hurt_ ,” Armin complained. “Don’t you remember training? When our bodies weren’t used to it, it hurt like hell.”

“The materials are better this time,” Petra said. “Still, we don’t expect to turn much of a profit outside of thrillseekers. That’s who we’re marketing to.”

“And profit isn’t the point,” Levi said.

“Exactly.”

They walked around the park until the sky went dark, Eren imagining all sorts of maneuvers he wanted to try, and the night turned chill around them. Not New York winter chill—just cool, without the sun’s warmth to dredge the sky in orange.

On their way out of the park, Eren slipped his hand into Levi’s while Levi was preoccupied examining some of the ground-level obstacles, and Levi didn’t shake him off. Eren grinned.

“You don’t have to look so smug about it,” Levi said, without even turning to look. There was a smile in his voice. “Brat.”

“Do you have eyes somewhere I’m not aware of?” Eren asked, actually impressed. Sometimes Levi still seemed larger-than-life to him—the person Eren had once thought could do anything.

He’d never told Levi that, though, because he was pretty sure Levi would think he was making fun of his height.

“You’re predictable,” Levi said instead, which didn’t make Eren any less impressed. Now that he was here at last, he was giddy with it. Mike had come, and others would too. There was a part of him that knew he wouldn’t be going back to school on the east coast, not after this trip—no matter what happened with the shifters.

 

 

They went back to Petra’s house after sunset, and Mike began cooking. Eren helped, because he had a feeling Levi liked seeing him help and he was still trying to get in Levi’s good graces. Also, Mike was cool, and a better cook than anyone Eren had ever met, even if he sometimes looked at Petra’s dried herb collection like a man mourning something. When Eren asked her about it, she said Mike was a herb snob.

Apparently being a snob paid off; the result of Mike’s labor was homemade lasagna that could have been served in a five-star restaurant, but they ate it off mismatched plates seated wherever there was space, laughter and talk humming throughout the house.

“Erwin should be here,” Levi said in an annoyed voice, abruptly, causing Eren and Petra to glance at him. Just like old times, they were the ones attuned to him.

“He’ll come eventually,” Petra said.

“Hm.”

“You don’t think he will?” Eren asked.

“I don’t know.”

“He’s talking to Mike,” Petra said. “Online. We all have to walk our own paths. Some converge…”

… _and some don’t_ , the silence after she trailed off seemed to say.

“As long as we’re all happy, right?” Eren said, and Levi looked at him sharply.

“Oh?”

“Oh what?” Eren asked, feeling like he was about to be scolded.

“Do the shifters get to be happy?” Levi’s eyes were shrewd. Eren wasn’t sure if he was looking for a fight or taking advantage of the situation to scope out Eren’s feelings, but Eren felt his body heat in preparation for _something_ nonetheless.

“That depends,” he said.

“On what?”

“On how sorry they are,” Eren mumbled, and thought he saw Petra smile. Levi wasn’t smiling at all.

 

  

“You’re worrying again,” Eren said, when Levi finally returned to their shared bedroom after his second shower since the plane ride. Eren had showered before him; the large house was quiet, everyone winding down to go to bed.

 _I thought you’d forgiven me a little_ , Eren thought but didn’t say as Levi sat down on the opposite end of the bed. He knew he’d messed up big time when he’d first gotten news of the shifters, and he regretted it, but he couldn’t go back in time and change his actions even if he wanted to.

“We’re meeting them soon,” Levi said. “I don’t want you to go off again.”

Levi didn’t sound angry—not like his unsmiling countenance earlier had suggested. He looked tired, maybe.

“So we won’t have sex before,” Eren said, hoping the tone he struck conveyed what a large concession that was on his part.

“What?” He wasn’t sure if Levi sounded amused or perplexed.

“Well, if we don’t have sex, our curse won’t go into effect. We can sleep together properly after we meet with the shifters.”

Levi started to smile. “Do you think I’m a priest?”

“Do you think _I_ am?”

Levi put a hand over his mouth, close to laughter, Eren thought. Levi shook his head. “That almost seems like a good idea. Absurd, but good.”

“I want to,” Eren said seriously. “Like—I _really_ —”

Levi caught the hand that was sliding over the coverlet towards him. “I get the point, Eren.”

Somehow, Levi saying his name like that still had the power to make Eren shiver, turning back into an awkward boy with a crush. They were alone—in a guest bedroom no one had stopped them from claiming. They were allowed to be together, and they were both adults—in mind if not body—and Eren still felt shivery at the sound of his name.

Well, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“What?” Levi asked.

Eren surged forward, closing the distance between them in a rush. Their noses bumped—but Levi moved his head just a little, and Eren kissed him softly before drawing back.

“Thanks for letting me stay in here with you,” Eren said. He could have said that about any time he’d been allowed to stay with Levi, in this life or the other: _thank you for never sending me away_.

Levi didn’t understand; it was clear in his expression. His raised brow suggested Eren was making a big deal out of nothing.

They settled down for the night, and Eren slunk over to Levi’s side of the bed, wrapping an arm around him and fitting his body to the curve of Levi’s. He breathed deeply, taking in Levi’s clean scent—he always seemed to smell so good.

“Are you a dog?” Levi mumbled, but he backed into Eren just a little.

“Mm.”

Eren kept his body very still, counting his breaths. It would be very easy to think of Levi’s smell, and how his compact body fit perfectly with Eren’s, and how good his ass felt against Eren’s crotch, but Eren wasn’t thinking that.

Well, he wasn’t _trying_ to think that. And anyway, his mind wandered from there: he started to consider what Levi might do if Eren traced kisses along the back of his neck, if Eren rolled him onto his back and started moving down his body—

“Eren.”

“It’ll go away.”

Levi snorted.

“Maybe you could talk about something nasty,” Eren suggested helpfully.

“Corporate tax loopholes. Dirty dishes. The anti-vaccine movement. Shit.”

Eren slid his hand down Levi’s side, let it sneak under the front of his shirt so he could feel Levi’s warm skin against his palm.

“Diarrhea. Hollywood casting decisions. Political gridlocks.”

“Okay, okay.”

“I could keep going,” Levi said.

“I’d rather stop you before you get going on food poisoning outbreaks in one bathroom houses or something.”

Levi’s laugh was silent, but his body shook with it. Eren sighed.

“I’m going to be even more impatient to meet the shifters now,” he said.

Levi’s exhale was slow. _So will I_ , it seemed to say—or maybe that was just what Eren hoped it was saying.

 

 

The days of preparation for meeting the shifters blurred into a cloud of impressions—happy moments, but also moments when Levi had to retreat because he wasn’t used to the sheer amount of people everywhere; he wondered how he’d ever survived life in the scouting legion. Then again, he hadn’t.

Most of all, he was waiting for Eren’s resumed happy-go-lucky veneer to crack—which it began to, by the morning when they were meant to meet the shifters. The night before Eren had been forward, going back on his resolution not to have sex before meeting the shifters—or rather, he redefined what sex meant and tried to get Levi to go along with it.

Levi refused, because he was stubborn and he’d spent the last three nights gritting his teeth and trying not to think of Eren in close proximity, all long limbs and tan skin and wandering hands. He was going to ride out this superstition-based celibacy gig to its end even if it killed him, which it sometimes felt like it might.

This morning Eren wasn’t trying anything, though. There was tension in his shoulders, and he nearly knocked over his glass of milk at the breakfast table. He shook off Mikasa’s hand when she put it over his.

Levi watched silently, and exchanged a glance with Mikasa. He wasn’t sure if she had the same worries he did, but there was a good chance.

The oats Levi ate for breakfast became glue in his stomach as they prepared to leave the house, and he wished he’d opted for the sugar-filled nothing Eren had eaten.

 _He’s not going to kill them_ , Levi told himself. It wasn’t blind faith in Eren that made him think that; he was determined not to let it happen. Then: _He’s not stupid enough to try._

Levi hoped that was true. He was almost sure that it was—almost.

He’d stick close nonetheless. They were going to be meeting at a nearby outdoor shopping center, where plenty of stranger-witnesses would preclude some kind of blood bath—assuming the shifters cared about not creating blood baths in this life.

Levi had to believe that. His mission had been stripped from him when he was reborn; he refused to believe the shifters had retained theirs.

Once they got into the van from the first day, Levi’s mind turned from Eren long enough to notice Auruo’s white knuckles, the steering wheel held in a vice grip.

Great—did Levi have to worry about his old team too? He looked at Petra and saw her pale, set face.

“No one dies,” he said into the silence of the car. It was the same crowd he’d traveled from the airport with, and he missed Mike’s warm, silent presence.

“No one dies,” Armin echoed, but Armin wasn’t one of the people Levi was worried about.

“I’m not going to do anything stupid,” Eren said softly.

“Not just you,” Levi said, and this had the power to draw Eren’s eyes to him in question. A moment later Eren looked at Petra and Auruo with wide eyes, as if he’d just woken up.

“I won’t meet them,” Auruo said. Despite his white knuckles, his voice was measured.

“And you?” Levi asked Petra.

“I… haven’t decided.”

“I thought you wanted to know what happened,” Hange said. They’d been quiet all morning; Levi was pretty sure they’d skipped breakfast, or else had a stash in the room they were sharing.

“I don’t need to meet them for that,” Petra said, and Levi could relate to that. He’d rather just know than have to meet these people too.

The car was silent for the rest of the trip, and when they got out Mikasa pulled him aside.

“I’ll go in separately,” she said. “Hide.”

He nodded. They were early; they could set up their own people anywhere they wanted.

“But you shouldn’t,” she said. “I want you with Eren.”

“Sure you don’t want to trade places?” he asked.

“No. He’ll feel more guilty if it’s you holding him back. Don’t do the it’s-your-decision speech.”

Levi huffed a breath. He’d given that speech back when things _were_ Eren’s decision—back when good and bad were blurred and most roads led to more casualties. That moral grayness wouldn’t be there if the shifters had truly come to reconcile.

What he wanted most was for Eren to prove he realized that, though. He wouldn’t hold Eren back unless he’d already made his decision and it was the wrong one.

Levi refused to think of what course of action he’d take if Eren attacked the shifters unprovoked, past holding him; he wouldn’t think about that unless it happened.

Mikasa and Hange moved to take up positions around the outdoor mall, and Petra decided she wouldn’t go meet the shifters. Her hands were shaking.

That left Levi, Eren, and Armin—and the people in the other car. Mike joined them silently; Eld and Gunther offered quiet hello’s. Out of all of them, Gunther and Mike looked the least like they might throw up; Gunther because he had his family to steady him in this life, and Mike because he was Mike.

“Okay then,” Armin said. “Shall we?”

Reiner had suggested the meeting place, and that they come from either side of the mall. Levi wondered if anyone else had cheesy Spaghetti Western music playing in their heads; his palms were sweaty.

Mikasa and Hange would spot if anything was up. Still, the old fear made Levi long for his maneuver gear—for the vantage of rooftops and the assured escape of flight. The last thing Levi expected as they left the parking lot and moved into the manicured outdoor mall was for Eren to slip his hand into his. Eren’s hand was clammy, and Levi wondered if he was scared of the shifters.

Eren seemed so beyond fear sometimes, but how could he be?

Their small group passed children with ice cream, women with hands full of shopping bags. This wasn’t their world, not at the moment. But maybe after today it would be.

Levi felt his lungs burn when they arrived at the spot and saw the shifters approach from the other direction: two of them, one blond and stocky and the other brunette and tall. The blond seemed to be holding his hand behind his back, and Levi dropped Eren’s hand to surge forward, ahead of the group.

 _He has a gun_. That was the only thought in Levi’s head: _gun_ , and the knowledge that if he was fast enough he might be able to prevent disaster.

He was ready to storm at the blond, who’d stopped in his tracks at Levi’s charge, but something flew into him from the side—a shopper, Levi thought, trying to clear his arms and take the blond down, but after a moment he recognized the person as Hange. They hissed in his ear.

“They’re unarmed. Shh. Don’t fight.”

Levi’s body felt coiled tight with tension, with the need to protect the people behind him—but the blond was eyeing him warily, and he hadn’t pulled a gun.

Levi straightened up, let Hange release him. His body felt shaky.

“Eren,” Blondie said. Reiner. The armored titan. “Armin.”

“So you remember our names,” Eren said. He was looking at Reiner without a shred of sympathy—but he wasn’t attacking. His hands were clenched in fists at his sides, looking ready to punch for all that Reiner was built bigger than him in this life too, and he looked to be in his twenties rather than Eren’s still-gangly teens.

“We remember a lot of things,” Reiner said. “Which is why… we thought we had to make the effort. We owe you that much.”

Bertholdt said nothing. He didn’t look at any of them, either.

“Explain it, then,” Eren said. “Explain why you killed so many people.”

Armin’s hands rise as if to hold Eren’s words back, but he lowers them a moment later and looks at Reiner. Reiner’s neck bulges as he ducks his head and tries to find words.

“We thought we were doing the right thing.”

It should have been too quiet to hear, among shoppers walking past and loud toddlers and the distance between them, but Levi heard Reiner as if he was standing next to him, as if guilt was its own microphone.

“How do you figure that?” Eren asked. His eyes were narrowed.

“It was to save humanity,” Reiner said. “Not—not kill. The royals…”

“Yes?” Eren asked, when he trailed off. Their group had moved closer to Reiner, as if drawn in by his soft speech. Levi could probably jump the two shifters from here, but he felt no desire to.

“It was the only way to really save humanity,” Reiner said in hushed tones. “Our village. And the rest of the world. Not the occupants inside the walls, but the ones outside. But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe we were wrong, and I’ve been thinking about that since before I died the first time. So has Bertl. So please…”

He took a deep breath.

“If you need to punish us, do. We’ll come with you willingly. But…”

He stepped aside. The thing—or rather, person—he’d been holding behind his back came into clear view, and it was a young girl, still trying to cling to Reiner’s hand. Levi was bad at judging the ages of children, but she could be no older than ten.

“Not her,” Reiner said. “If you take revenge on us, you take care of her. You forgive her.”

“Annie,” Armin breathed. “She was in the crystal. She outlived us.”

 _Not by much_ , Levi thought. Not by much more than a decade. What had happened when she was released? Or had she died still locked inside of that crystal, deep below the capital?

Something about that made Levi feel claustrophobic. He’d died under the open sky, and he’d been okay with that being his end. Dying in a hole…

“And if we don’t want to punish you?” Armin asked. “What happens then?”

Reiner shrugged. “It’s up to you. We can leave you alone forever, if you’d like.”

“Eren?” Armin asked, and Eren seemed to break out of a trance. He looked around at the group, at Eld and Gunther.

“It’s not my decision, is it?” he said, and he seemed to be waiting for someone to say something.

“If it was your decision, what would you say?” Levi asked.

“That it’s not… it won’t make anything right.” Eren looked at Armin, and Hange, and all his companions—and then he looked back at the shifters. “I wanted to hurt them so badly and now…” He shrugged.

Levi felt warmth creep back into his body, though he hadn’t noticed he was cold. The harsh, angry lines of Eren’s body had loosened. Armin looked like he was mentally preparing to ask a million questions, and Hange looked pleased. Eld was shaking, but only slightly, and Gunther had his hand on Eld’s shoulder, steadying him. Mike was inscrutable as always.

The tension was beginning to leave the air. Bertholdt had begun to glance up at their faces, though he never met their eyes for long.

“I want to go,” Annie said to Reiner, looking up at him. She didn’t look at him like a child looking up at a parent; her expression was strange for a girl her age.

They’d all been strange children, though.

“Then go,” Eren said, looking at Annie. She looked back at him, her eyes curiously empty. She didn’t look angry, or guilty, or like a child that didn’t understand what was going on. If anything she looked resigned, a prisoner of many years awaiting a verdict without hope.

Eren seemed to see that, too. He looked for a moment longer, then—as if it was no effort at all—he left. He just walked away, back in the direction of the car.

The decision was left up to others, including Levi—and Levi couldn’t bring himself to care. He would go along with whoever cared most and wasn’t an idiot. This wasn’t his fight anymore.

Maybe there was no fight at all; he was tempted to follow Eren. By the gleam in Armin and Hange’s eyes, though, not everyone wanted to make a dramatic exit on the spot.

“I’ve got a few questions,” Hange said. They and Armin exchanged a glance, then a smile: they were the investigators on the case now. “Would you mind answering them?”

Levi watched his companions draw the shifters aside, to one of the benches, and he had no wish to follow. Eld, Gunther and Mike seemed to have the same idea; the three of them walked back together. When Levi glanced over his shoulder, he saw Mikasa watching over the group by the bench, hanging back.

She was still playing bodyguard; Levi had no job.

Eren, Petra and Auruo waited by the cars. Petra had a hand on Eren’s shoulder, and she looked less shaky than she had when they separated.

“Armin and Hange are asking them questions,” Levi said. He looked out at the nearby highway, hearing cars speed past and smelling asphalt. This was his world—not that other one, of blue skies and horse hooves in the mud and fear, always fear.

Eren left Petra’s side to greet Levi, as if he hadn’t seen him in a while. Levi was embarrassed when Eren hugged him as if they were alone, but everyone turned politely away, and Levi didn’t push him off.

They were done. There was no one left to ambush them—life could go on. They could make their decisions from here on out, continue this strange mission to gather up lost souls from another world and hand out sanctuary instead of punishment.

In the end, Eren hadn’t even wanted to hurt the shifters.

“It’s over,” Eren said, echoing Levi’s thoughts. He hadn’t let go yet.

“Yes, and we’re in public.”

“Does the public mind?” Eren asked, and Petra laughed and said no.

Mike patted Eren’s head as if he was blessing him, which caused more laughter. The others began to talk—about traffic, of all things.

Levi took a breath of Eren-scented air—warm, almost-familiar, clean—and let his shoulders drop, the tension leaving his body. He leaned into Eren’s embrace, and felt Eren’s arms tighten around him.

It was over.


	13. The curse lifted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied when I said there was only one chapter left; there's this one and the next (an epilogue), but I'm uploading them in one go. I want to extend huge thanks to everyone who encouraged me. This fic was never big; you're the reason it kept going for as long as it did. I hope you realize how essential you are and how much I appreciated your comments. And with incredible thanks to tumblr user eicinic for reigniting something in me with her art for this fic--and her art in general. Her amazing work:
> 
> http://eicinic.tumblr.com/post/112129993105/you-forgot-he-said-with-a-tone-of-sudden
> 
> http://eicinic.tumblr.com/post/112257164925/chapter-1-chapter-2-well-long-post-related-to
> 
> http://eicinic.tumblr.com/post/112994938985/chapter-1-chapter-2-long-adaptation-of-the
> 
> and a sweet headcanon I can't possibly disagree with: http://eicinic.tumblr.com/post/113250570050/i-can-explain-this-i-was-sketching-for-no-such
> 
> The smut in this chapter is M rather than E (if that) but if you'd like to jump through ctrl+f to "They were quiet"

“So,” Eren said.

“So,” Armin echoed. They were back at Petra’s house, holed up in the bedroom Eren and Levi shared. Mikasa sat on the bed with them, legs drawn up. It was just the three of them.

“What are you going to do?” Eren asked.

“Do?” Armin quirked an eyebrow, but Eren knew he was hedging. He’d been pretty obvious before when he talked about latent feelings for Annie, or at least wanting to know where she was coming from—wanting to understand her as a person. But she was only barely a person this lifetime: a child, with a child’s rounded face and gawky limbs.

“You wanted to understand the shifters,” Mikasa put in helpfully.

“I got their contact info,” Armin said. “And their story.”

Armin had told it to them on the way back, him and Hange taking turns. They told of a shifter’s village and elders who insisted on a prophecy—that the world would perish if the walls remained, that their only hope was to grab hold of the coordinate and give the person housing the coordinate up to the ape titan. The prophecy warned of sickness spreading, of patches of humanity yet untouched by titans. The walls would be humanity’s downfall, not its hope.

Their world within the walls had only been a tiny fraction of a much bigger world, one the shifters had been tasked with protecting. Their walled stronghold was an imbalance to correct.

There had been humans born outside the walls.

Eren had wondered about that; if their world then had been as full of humans as the world he lived in now, why did he have to be born within the walls in that life? Why had his chances at happiness—the chances of everyone he knew—been so horribly crushed up?

And was this life his reward for that? The universe making peace with him?

“Obviously I’m not attracted to a child,” Armin said. “She’s… just whatever she is.”

“She doesn’t talk like a child,” Mikasa said. Eren felt a tiny bit annoyed at himself for retreating earlier and missing out on the shifters’ story—but he had to at the time. He couldn’t stand there and listen to their story. It would have been too much on top of the _realness_ of them.

Armin shrugged. “Maybe it’s enough that we’ve seen the shifters. It would make sense for us to go on with our lives now.”

“In what way?” Eren asked.

“Well, I’ve been thinking about it and I’m sort of torn between neuroscience and physics.” Armin pulled at his lip thoughtfully. “I know I can’t do both. I just have to figure out if I’m more interested in understanding how humans work or how the universe works.”

“Oh,” Mikasa said. “Is that all?”

She was smiling, and Eren snorted. He wondered if he was supposed to have interests like that, though he was never going to have any trouble deciding between neuroscience and physics: for him, the answer was neither.

“What about you?” he asked Mikasa.

“I was thinking of competing more in martial arts,” she said. “My head clears when I’m active. Although compared to Armin’s goals doing sports doesn’t really sound that impressive…”

“We need all sorts,” Armin said seriously.

Eren drew his knees up, put his chin on them. It occurred to him that he, Armin and Mikasa wouldn’t be friends if this was the first world they were born in together. It was the other world that held them tight together—but when he shared the sentiment with them, they looked at him like he was crazy.

“You’re wrong,” Mikasa said.

Armin nodded.

“What?” Eren’s eyes were wide. He’d thought it was obvious.

“The other world may have been the start of it, but we made our own decisions, to stay together” Armin said. “That’s not how you think of Levi, is it? That you’re with him because you had a crush on him last time?”

“What! No! I definitely—uh.”

“You definitely what?” Mikasa asked, a small smile on her face.

“Have a crush… this time…”

Armin was looking at him with pursed lips. “But you still think of him as the person he used to be.”

Eren couldn’t deny it. Sometimes he found himself imagining patterns of bruising on Levi’s skin, the hardened places where maneuver gear would have chafed. He found himself trying to reach out to the Levi of the past, as if his love now could blaze into that dark life and brighten it. It was a stupid fancy, and a depressing one, but he couldn’t stop having it. Armin’s concern made him feel shaky and unsure. Was what he felt now just an echo?

Could an echo feel that strong?

“I’ve been thinking of staying here,” Eren said. He expected a protest, but it seemed safer than discussing his feelings for Levi.

“Transferring, you mean?” Mikasa said.

“No, just… staying.”

Mikasa and Armin exchanged a glance.

“What?” Eren asked. It was obvious they’d talked about something like this before, though he had no idea what kind of conversation that had been.

“No, just… I thought you might want to stay here,” Armin said. “More of our people, and the maneuver gear park nearby. It suits you.”

“It does?”

“But you can’t give up on your own future,” Armin said. “You need something, Eren. More than just staying here and helping others find each other. You need to find your passion in this world.”

Eren blew out a breath. “But no pressure, right?”

“No, lots of pressure,” Armin said. “I’m kind of scared of what would happen if you got bored. Maybe talk to Hange sometime. They have good ideas.”

“Are they helping you with your decisions?” Mikasa asked.

Armin nodded.

Mikasa opened her mouth to ask another question before closing it abruptly. Then: “I just realized you’ve successfully gotten us off the topic of Annie without telling us anything.”

Armin’s shoulders tightened. “It’s not something I want to talk about. If I had romantic feelings at one point, they’re not appropriate anymore. Knowing what she knew is enough.”

“And what about her feelings?” Mikasa asked.

“We’ll see,” Armin said. “I just want to focus on things I can do by myself. I want a good life, this time.”

Mikasa pinched his cheek affectionately. “I’ll make sure you get one, then.”

Eren smiled. “Me too. Let’s go to the beach while we’re here, okay?”

“And no thinking about the past?” Armin asked, looking at Eren suspiciously.

“Nope, none of that,” Eren said. “We’re building sand castles, and turning Mikasa into a sand mermaid, and swimming. Maybe we’ll learn to surf next time we’re all at a beach.”

Armin grinned while Mikasa protested that she’d make Eren a mermaid. Eren had a feeling Levi would make him take about a hundred showers if he ever let himself be buried in sand, but it might be worth it for the experience, especially if it would calm Armin’s whole seize-the-day frenzy.

The heavy conversation was over. Eren still felt insecurity tugging at him—he wasn’t sure if he _could_ be passionate about this life, when it seemed so random—but he knew that, for the moment, he was happy. The three of them walked downstairs together and found the others sprawled in the living room having a movie marathon. Hange was draped over Mike and crowing about something, sending Erwin frequent messages. Levi looked up at Eren and smiled when he saw him, though there were questions in his face.

Right now was good, Eren thought.

 

* * *

 

 

Eren sprawled facedown on the bed, taking up more space than he was due. “My bed,” he said. “All mine.”

He hoped Levi wouldn’t agree. He sort of wanted him to crawl on top of him, but he was too shy to ask for it.

“I’ll fight you for it,” Levi said, making Eren roll and look up at him where he stood next to the bed with his arms folded. He looked amused, one side of his mouth pulled back in a half-smile.

“That’s not fair,” Eren said. “You’d win.”

“Assuming you don’t fight dirty.”

Eren felt a smile tugging at his lips. “You’re saying I could win from you if I used my wiles?”

“Probably. Maybe. Depends on how weak I am that day.”

Eren looked at Levi closely: the loose T-shirt he wore, the neat black jeans. Levi looked good in suits, but he looked good in everything. Eren didn’t think Levi was the weak one; he kept imagining how Levi’s hipbones looked over the waistband of his jeans, the trim abdominal muscles above. Levi was still Eren’s ultimate fantasy, even in this life, especially when he was smiling in that way that barely involved his mouth. As an added bonus his hair was messier than usual, still recovering from being windblown earlier.

Eren sat up, his conversation with Armin and Mikasa still on his mind.

“Would you like me if you’d never met me before?” he asked.

Levi inclined his head. “What?”

“If we met in this life. Would you… you know.”

Levi sat down, looking pensive. “It’d be easier, in some ways.”

“What ways?”

“I was your superior. Over a decade your elder. You think I don’t feel guilty about pinning my hopes on a boy that young?”

“Romantic hopes?”

“All my hopes.”

“I relied on you too. Everyone did.”

Levi moved to sit on the bed more solidly, intentionally or unintentionally mirroring Eren’s posture: cross legged, back straight. “They did. But that’s different.”

“So you’re saying you’d like me more?” Eren asked.

“I don’t think that’s possible. I just mean… it’d be easier. A clean slate.”

Eren nodded slowly. Both of them still had one foot in the past; that was what had drawn them to each other this time around. In the other life there had been understanding, soft feelings, late-night talks. That seemed like better common ground than a hazy past life.

“I’d like to get to know this you,” Levi said.

Nervousness fluttered under Eren’s breastbone at the way Levi stated it like plain truth.

“Sometimes I feel like I don’t know this me,” Eren said. “Armin was… saying something about that. Saying I needed to find my passion.”

Levi snorted.

“What? What’s funny about that?”

“Only that it’s the most this-world thing you could say. _Find your passion_. Doesn’t that make you like everyone else? Everyone who doesn’t remember past lives?”

Eren smiled slowly. “I guess it does.”

They were silent for a while before a thought caught Eren’s fancy. “I wouldn’t mind taking up hiking,” he said.

Levi looked amused. “What else?”

“Surfing. Raising money for good causes. Finding out what those good causes are, rather than funding organizations that use their donations for all the wrong things.”

“There are websites that research that sort of thing for you.”

“See? You’re already ahead of me.”

“I’ve always been ahead of you.”

Eren hoped he looked as exasperated as he felt. “Not by as much as you think.”

Levi smiled. “Maybe not.”

Something blossomed in Eren’s chest. He felt easy, light. Being like this with Levi was natural to him, somehow, even if he couldn’t tell what feelings were an echo and which belonged in this life. If he did this right, maybe eventually all of his feelings could belong here. It was so obvious that Levi cared, that he’d listen to anything.

Eren leaned forward, crossing the distance of two sets of folded legs, kneeling so he could reach. He didn’t cup Levi’s face or touch him in any way; all he did was slot his lips to Levi’s, kiss him with the same tentative air that had dominated their conversation tonight. When he drew back, Levi’s breath gusted against his lips.

This close to Levi, Eren could smell him—clean and masculine, tugging at something inside of Eren the same way Levi’s scent always did. Always had, probably.

“I’d like to know this you, too,” Eren said.

“Then do.”

Eren’s hands moved up, sliding along Levi’s jawline before Eren leaned forward once more. This kiss was like the last, slow and careful, but it sped when Levi hooked a hand in Eren’s shirt, and deepened when Eren crawled close so they were sitting almost chest to chest, Eren’s legs hanging off the side of the bed.

Eren’s breath stuttered when Levi started pushing his shirt up, and he shed the garment readily, moving in to press kisses to Levi’s neck, wondering if it was petty to leave marks.

The thought of Levi with marks on his neck—marks he’d left—made Eren’s heart hammer.

“If you give me a hickey I’m killing you. This isn’t scarf weather.”

Eren laughed. “Sorry. Can I leave one somewhere else?”

Levi pulled back to look at him, exasperation written all over his face.

“Hey, aren’t you the one who calls me a brat?” Eren said. “I should live up to the name, right?”

The issue fell by the wayside; Eren lifted Levi’s shirt and reveled in what he uncovered, moving back to press kisses. When his back started to hurt, he moved Levi and pressed him into the mattress, moving his mouth down Levi’s side to his hipbone, keeping one hand on Levi’s chest to hold him down. Levi did squirm, a bit, probably because Eren’s mouth tickled.

When Eren looked up Levi had a hand on his forehead; he looked overwhelmed, his hair messy and his cheeks flushed. Eren bit his lip, telling himself not to get too turned on.

 _Make it worth the wait_ , he thought to himself.

He timed the next act perfectly: at the same time that he sucked on the skin above Levi’s hipbone, hard, he moved his free hand to cup him through his jeans. Levi hissed in a breath, his head falling back, and Eren’s tongue flicked out to lick the bruise he’d left.

He was pretty sure Levi hadn’t noticed; he tried not to look smug.

“That’s enough,” Levi said. For a second, Eren thought he was still being superstitious, decreeing that they couldn’t have sex because of the curse, but then Levi flipped them and returned Eren’s treatment, pulling off Eren’s clothes and leaving him naked and wanting. Levi’s hands were rough, and they seemed intent on caressing every inch of Eren’s skin, from his neck to his ankles, back and front. If it hadn’t been for the ardent look in Levi’s eyes Eren would have worried about being caught in some _Silence of the Lambs_ deal.

When Levi sat up for a moment, Eren pulled him closer by the waistband of his jeans, trying not to be embarrassed by having his erection on full display when Levi was still half clothed. With shaking hands he managed to undo the button, then the zipper, though he couldn’t push the jeans down while Levi was straddling him.

“Eren,” Levi said, leaning forward. He caught Eren’s mouth in a kiss and held him there, his hand in Eren’s hair. Eren’s hands clenched in the blankets. Levi’s other hand was still caressing him.

“Have you seen yourself?” Levi asked when he pulled back. His hands were running down Eren’s chest now, tracing muscles not nearly as prominent as Levi’s—but Levi’s voice was thick with admiration. Not _you’re beautiful_ or _you look amazing_ but _have you seen yourself?_ in that worshipful tone of voice.

It made Eren’s skin feel like it was burning.

“Take those off,” he said, motioning at the jeans before catching Levi’s wandering hands. Levi’s eyes looked a little hazy, but when they met Eren’s they cleared. He sighed as if Eren’s request was ridiculous, then moved off to shed the last of his clothes.

When he was finished, he sat back down, and Eren had to suck in a breath.

No clothes, now, and the way Levi straddled him put them in perfect contact—the one spot he had wanted Levi to caress more than anything. He needed to stop being a teenager; this was exhausting.

Then again, Levi was in his late twenties in this life, and he looked no less caught up than Eren was.

They started it like that: with Levi on top, using lube from the nightstand. They tried to be slow, and Eren tried to be gentle, but the world was falling away between them and he got lost in heat and friction and the noises he caught Levi muffling against his hand, against pillows.

Eren was pretty sure he wasn’t as good as Levi’s response was making him out to be, but then maybe sometimes the who was more important than the how. When they rolled and Eren found himself over Levi, able to press kisses and move as he wished, he stopped holding back.

 _I choose you_ , he thought, finding Levi’s hard breathing matching his. _I choose this. All of this_.

He wasn’t sure how long he lasted, but it was a little longer than Levi, and that was all that mattered.

They were quiet for a long time after, though their bodies weren’t; hands touched, lips traced. Levi’s eyes were unguarded when Eren met them, grey and familiar. The usual anxiety was gone from them.

“Race me tomorrow,” Eren said, smiling. “When we go to the park.”

“You’ll get yourself killed.”

“Promise not to.”

“Okay then.” Levi looked up at the ceiling, smiled too. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“Me too,” Eren said. He meant it.

 

* * *

  

Levi laughed when he caught his reflection in the mirror after his morning shower. He hadn’t noticed last night, but there over his left hip was a mark: one of the hickeys Eren had wanted to leave. He’d done it, then, without Levi’s noticing. Levi traced the spot with his fingers.

 _Brat_ , he thought, without a modicum of heat behind it. He felt strangely peaceful, the usual sharp edges dulled. He knew it was temporary, but that didn’t seem to matter.


	14. Epilogue

Levi was winded and his muscles were aching. If he’d been a maneuver gear genius in his last life, that was gone; this gear was different— _safer_ , Petra insisted—and all he had left was the joy of flight, the momentary weightlessness before gravity caught him. They’d been practicing with the maneuver gear all week, and tomorrow they’d be flying home. It had taken a while to get good enough for the more dangerous circuits, and Levi’s body had ached constantly, but he felt like he’d regained a part of himself.

He hung off the side of a fake building, wondering if any normal person could enjoy this as a hobby. Perhaps they could; people rode mountain bikes off steep descents. This was no crazier.

There was a noise of someone’s hook hitting the building adjacent, and then Eren was hanging nearby, his face flushed.

“Mikasa trounced us,” he said. He was grinning.

“Of course she did.”

“Now it’s time for our race,” Eren said. “You can’t delay it forever. This is the last day.”

“It was too dangerous before, when we hadn’t practiced enough.”

“And it’s not now?”

Levi grinned. “What did you think I was waiting for?”

Eren’s eyes lit up; his hook shot out to near where Levi hung, and he drew in close. “Let’s do it then.”

Others whistled when they saw what was happening, a group of them standing below: Hange, Gunther, Mike, Petra. Levi thought he saw money exchange hands; he tried not to laugh.

He wasn’t planning on letting Eren win.

“Not at the same time!” Petra yelled from below. “Use the gear’s stopwatch! We haven’t done enough practice for—”

“We know!” Eren yelled back. None of them were being casual with their safety, even though the nets hung up to catch them if they fell made it easy to feel like nothing could go wrong. In the back of their minds they knew people could die from almost anything: falling wrong, rolling wrong, strangulation in the cords.

“I’ll go first,” Eren said.

“You’re still worn out.” Levi had wanted to go first; he’d been standing still for too long, and the sun was starting to set. The air had grown cold and so had he.

“Just trying to give you an advantage, old man.”

Levi folded his arms, which probably looked strange while balancing sideways on a building. “Go ahead, then.”

Eren sneaked a kiss. People below whistled.

A moment later Eren was off, flying from building to building. He didn’t prioritize efficiency of movement; he moved too far to either side, always, keen to finish arcs and fly as far as he could, fixated on the joy of it. Already Levi knew he would win from him.

But Eren’s way looked fun, too.

Levi jumped to the next building to keep Eren in view as he made the circuit, zooming between outcroppings and aerial hoops. When he got back to the start his hair took a moment to flop back over his forehead, and then he was grinning.

Levi moved to where Eren had been when he started.

“Three minutes, eight seconds,” Eren said, loud enough for the crowd below to hear. “Let’s see you beat that.”

“Don’t take it personally when I do.”

“What did he say?” Hange shouted from below. “Was that sass? It sounded like sass.”

Levi suppressed laughter. He shot off, letting the gear pull him, the watch starting automatically. Buildings whizzed by, and there was wind in his hair and against his cheeks, chilled by the speed he was going at. His eyes teared, and he narrowed them to keep them focused. The speed and the dizzying heights and the knowledge of the people back there made parts of Levi slot back into place, parts that had been rattling around uselessly for years. He didn’t swing in arcs like Eren had, too intent on winning, but the satisfaction he felt flying from building to building and mapping out the most efficient route in his mind was heady.

At the highest point of one jump, when he’d gone just slightly too far, he spotted the orange sun pretty in its smog haze. His breath caught, and then gravity pulled him back to the present. His hook shot out to the next building, and he didn’t stop again until he’d finished the circuit.

He looked down at his watch.

“Two minutes and forty-nine seconds,” he said. It wasn’t as fast as he should have been; he’d gotten distracted after all.

“All right, pay up,” he heard from below, then, almost too quiet for him to catch: “I told you he wouldn’t let him win.”

The group moved off, and Eren and Levi were left hanging off the side of their building without an audience. Eren’s eyes were narrowed, but the expression looked forced; he hadn’t wanted Levi to lose.

“I was hoping you’d do the spinny thing,” Eren said.

 _The spinny thing_ , Levi thought. He remembered the move, but he hadn’t needed to do it; there was nothing to kill here, and he was afraid he might forget something and end up tangled in his gear’s cords.

“Maybe next time.”

“About that…” Eren said. The sun had moved, slicing between buildings to make Eren’s skin look gold and his eyes vibrant green. Levi tried not to hold his breath. His back was to the sunset, and he knew his own face was cast in shadow, but Eren could still see him. He’d notice if Levi looked awed.

“You want to stay,” Levi guessed.

Eren nodded.

“We’ll need to square things up at home, and you need to contact your parents, but I won’t object.”

“We?” Eren said, and he was grinning.

“I assume I’m invited,” Levi said, tone dry. Something had shifted between them this past week, though making an assumption like that still made Levi nervous.

“You are.”

“And then what? Soul-searching while you wait for others to stream back into your life?” Levi hadn’t missed Eren’s new habits: googling hikes and mountains for climbing and surfing spots, picking up maps whenever they were in a touristy area. When they’d gone to the beach three days ago he’d picked up about ten different flyers about local sights.

“Yes,” Eren said. “Armin’s right. I need to decide my own path this time.”

“I’m guessing he and Mikasa will follow you here?”

“They’ll transfer, yeah.”

Levi wondered if he could convince Erwin and Hange to move too. They’d discussed it before, but that was before Marie had gotten pregnant.

“Hange might like to be closer to the shifters,” Eren added, as if he’d read Levi’s mind. “I know they want to hypnotize them.”

“You say that like it’s a good thing. Don’t you want them gone completely?” He knew Eren didn’t want the shifters in his life, at the very least. Armin and Mikasa seemed slightly more open to it, but Eren closed down at the mention of drawing them in. Levi didn’t care one way or the other; to him they were strangers, and not particularly interesting ones. Their story hadn’t made their current life make sense, and nothing Hange found out through hypnosis would either.

This life defied explanation. He’d take it as it came.

“It’s good for you, right?” Eren said, with his customary selflessness. “You want Hange near.”

Levi nodded. “Though not too near.”

“And me?” Eren asked, his brows arching. The sun was still painting his skin gold.

“I’m not worried about you being too near, if that’s what you mean.” _Not at all_.

Eren didn’t say anything, just met his eyes and smiled.

“I just hope you won’t regret dropping out this year,” Levi said.

“I won’t. I don’t want to continue there.” He looked away, then back, his eyes bright with color. “I’m ready.”

 _For what?_ Levi could have asked, but he thought he knew: for this life, for them—ready to dive into something and never stop diving. Eren’s nature couldn’t be held back forever, and Levi wouldn’t want it to be.

Levi looked at Eren’s free hand, wondering if he could reach it from here.

“Are you?” Eren asked, and for a moment Levi wasn’t sure what he was asking. Then it struck him that Eren was asking him the same thing he’d asked of himself: _are you ready?_

Very slowly, Levi nodded. Eren reached out. Their free hands—the ones not holding onto the cords for balance—caught, held. Eren smiled, still looking lit from within—as if it was the sunset reflecting his brilliance and not the other way around.

Not _humanity’s hope_ , this time. Just this: a hand reaching out, a smile lit by the sunset.

That was enough.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] No Such Thing As Fate](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2273526) by [Mysecretfanmoments](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mysecretfanmoments/pseuds/Mysecretfanmoments), [odoridango](https://archiveofourown.org/users/odoridango/pseuds/odoridango)




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